


Cold War of Eight

by babaileymay



Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bruises, Daddy Issues, Drug Use, Escort Service, Eventual Happy Ending, Explicit Language, F/F, F/M, Hurt, Ice Powers, Loneliness, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mild Mentions of Mutilation, Multi, Non-Explicit Sex, Pansexual Character, Protective Siblings, Recreational Drug Use, Sibling Bonding, Siblings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 01:06:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18021911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babaileymay/pseuds/babaileymay
Summary: Eight has bite marks for kisses when she finds out.Dad is dead and they need to save the world. What's new?_________The Umbrella Academy but they have another sister.





	1. bites

**Author's Note:**

> So, I know already because this is an OC fic not many people are gonna enjoy this. This is just a way to hone my skills and practice while also doing a huge self insert on the down low. Hope you enjoy if you read it.

Eight has bite marks for kisses when she finds out. 

She rubs her hands together, trying to get some semblance of warmth when she sits down on the television remote accidentally. 

_‘The world’s most eccentric billionaire Sir Reginald Hargreeves announced dead this morning….’_

A door down the hall slammed shut. Beds upstairs creaked. 

Eight-no, May-shakily pulls on her clothes. An oversized sweater and a coat dwarf her frame. The man warming the hotel bed snores loudly. She plucks money from the man’s wallet before leaving. He’s a biter. His hands are heavy and leave bruises of his fingertips in her skin. He paid for an hour but only took ten minutes to finish. She takes a hundred more than usual. 

May rubs at the bruise forming on her collarbone. The guy is lucky he pays for her time, or she wouldn’t put up with the way purple marks bloom all over her skin. She presses on one gently to feel the pain blossom on her arm. 

May sprays herself with perfume to get the stench of sex off of herself. She has places to be. 

Walking back to the mansion where she grew up often gave her chills. May doesn’t bother lingering on the front step like a lost puppy. Instead, she opens the door and listens for any sound of her siblings. Nothing. 

She grabs a blanket from the couch and wraps it around herself. It may only be fall, but the cold likes to creep in on May. Klaus has ghosts, Allison is losing her child, Luther is on the moon, Ben was dead. Five is gone, Vanya is ordinary, Diego is a vigilante. May is cold. They all have their crosses to bear. May wishes her cross came with a heater. 

Somewhere in the house, a grandfather clock chimes. 

“Ms. May,” someone-Pogo, she realizes- says. “I did not expect you so early.”

“I had nothing better to do. Might as well watch this house crash and burn when we all reunite.”

“I see you’re still quite the optimist,” he jokes. May ignores the way his voice shakes around her. She is too cold. The room feels like the Arctic. May looks at Pogo, a practiced smile plays on her lips. 

“Optimism has always been overrated, dear Pogo.”

She expects him to say more, but he backs away. He has always backed away when it got too cold. Everyone always abandons her when ice takes over her heart, but no one asks her how her heart can be warmed. _Oh, well,_ she thinks, _it is my cross to bear._ Besides, it’s not like she knows the answer to that question. She’s always been cold.

The blanket is covered in frost. 

May sees Pogo try to slyly turn up the heater. She doesn’t blame him. 

: The Umbrella Academy :

May wakes up to the sounds of a door opening and her siblings speaking. 

“You’re actually here,” Allison says. She seems shocked. 

Vanya nods. May pushes down a wave of anger welling up inside her. When she sees Vanya she almost feels betrayed. All May could envision was what Vanya had written about her in her book. _May was cold in more ways than one. She was always distant and quiet, never speaking to the others. She iced over the world and never pulled herself out of her head. She drowned whatever was going on in her mind with lovers who warmed her bed._  
May remembers throwing the book into a fire.

Allison chuckles and the two hug. Even when they were kids Allison and Vanya loved each other. It was a quiet sort of love but May was able to observe from taps on the shoulder and gentle grins. 

Diego marches in, looking almost like a soldier. “What is she doing here? You don't belong here after what you did.” 

May tunes out most of the conversation, opting for staring at a portrait instead. She’s almost relieved no one has noticed her yet. She wonders if they’re just ignoring her, though. 

May stands to ensure they know she’s here. “I think I actually agree with Diego.”

Vanya starts to say something along the lines.

“Don’t,” she whispers, pained. “If you were sorry you wouldn’t have written it.” May bites her lip hard enough to draw blood and goes up the stairs. 

May wanders up the stairs. Her father's office seems like a good enough place to start labeling what she wants from his inheritance so she starts there. Someone is rummaging through the desk. 

“Where’s the cash?” Klaus grumbles. 

“Klaus?” 

He hits his head on the desk. 

“Oh, May! It’s been a while. Much too long. Actually, I was hoping to see you. I was wondering if I could borrow money from your sexcapades for some fun times.”

“You know I stopped funding your drug habit when you overdosed the first time.” 

“Not fair. I’m the one who helped you find the millionaire.”

“I don’t think me meeting the doctor taking care of you after an overdose counts as helping me find someone.”

Klaus leans back on Father’s old chair. “Fair enough. You wanna help me find something to sell?” 

“I could, but I’ll just sit and watch as you act like a madman.”

“Ouch. That was cold, ICEE. So cold.”

“Funny.” May deadpanned.

May watches as Klaus scrambles about the room, searching for something of value. She wisely chooses not to mention the bracelet indicating his release from rehab. Allison stalks into the room and observes the chaos that Klaus is causing. They snicker a little when he finds a box that looks mildly important. He wiggles his eyebrows at them before stuffing it up his shirt. 

“Put it back, Klaus,” Luther commands. 

May turns to tell him to shut up only to see Luther, who looks like he has skipped leg day one too many times. 

“Holy shit, man. You do know leg day is important, right? You’re an embarrassment to the moon people.” May jokes. Jokes are easy. They keep people at a distance. 

“I’m the only person who lives on the moon.”

“Did you eat the rest of the moon population? Is that why you’re so buff?” May slyly waves Klaus out of the room while she keeps Luther distracted. The thing about Number One is that he has only one brain cell available.  
Klaus shoots May a thumbs up and slides out of the room. She smiles, genuinely, for the first time in months.

: The Umbrella Academy : 

By self-definition, May is both unforgiving and undeserving of compassion. She wants no one’s care, so she charges people for the love she wants to give but can’t. These clients also mask their need for protection with surface toughness towards her. May felt shame for her vulnerability during sex, wanting people to hold her, and she was ashamed for even having the thought that she deserved love like that. 

She doesn’t think to blame this on her upbringing. 

They all stare into the fire with the same enthusiasm they arrived with (read: none). Klaus is being Klaus, getting drunk and high. It is strangely comforting to see some sort of constant (even if it’s a bad one). 

“I figured we could have a memorial service in the courtyard at sundown. Say a few words, just at Dad’s favorite spot,” Luther said. Ever the daddy’s boy. 

“Dad had a favorite spot?” Allison seems confused. 

“You know, under the oak tree. We used to sit out there all the time. None of you ever did that?” 

May grit her teeth. She didn’t want a reminder of all the attention-or lack thereof-she and her siblings received in comparison to the Golden Boy.

“Will there be refreshments?” Klaus interrupts, strolling in with a drink. He hands a sloppily poured whiskey to May. She set it down silently. “Tea? Scones? Ah, I hear cucumber sandwiches are in.”

Klaus is wearing a skirt. He sits next to May. She feels some sort of happiness at that. Klaus never judges her when she gets too cold, he knows what it’s like for something you didn’t want to creep into your bones and shake your core. 

“Is that my skirt?”

“It’s airy on the bits,” he justifies to Allison before taking a drag. 

Luther hushes everyone and tells them about the suspicious way in which Father died. “I need you to talk to Dad,” Luther requests. 

Klaus laughs a little. “I am not in the right… frame of mind.”  
“He’s high,” May translated. Klaus points at her and nods. 

Then, of course, Luther continues his lecture. 

_Did he always lecture so much or has being on the moon made him more like dad?_ May asks herself. 

Diego scoffs. “What he is trying to say is he thinks one of us killed Dad.”

The room goes silent for a moment. Cold starts to take hold of May’s hands. “You do?” 

“How could you think that?” Vanya’s voice sounds like a tragedy. 

May stands up suddenly and marches out of the room. “I’m just gonna freeze Pogo to death. Be right back.” 

She hears Diego angry stomps following. 

If, later, she dances to the beat of a song she’s forgotten the name of, well, no one needs to know.

: The Umbrella Academy :

Five is back. May doesn’t know how to process this. 

“Still only dealing in ice, I see,” he quips.

“Still thirteen, I see,” May retorts, a grin in her voice. 

“Fifty-eight, actually.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

After interviewing Five, who is apparently fifty-eight, they are left with more questions than answers. 

“That was interesting,” Luther provides. Everyone seems to have confused expressions. May is glad she isn’t the only one. 

“So he time traveled?” 

“It seems that way, yeah,” Allison answers, hand on her chin. 

They go outside to play the part of mourning children. May believes it would be easier if he was every truly a father. She tries not to cry when Mom seems clueless about Dad’s death. She wonders if her mother will be able to function without updates from Father.

“Is Mom okay?” Allison asks, face full of worry. A tear rolls down Diego’s cheek, unseen by anyone but May. 

“She’s fine.”

Father’s ashes fall to the ground unceremoniously. It is almost sad to see all that he was being dumped like it’s nothing. A small part of May feels glee at his downfall. 

There is no press scattered around the yard, flashing photos of the tragic scene. No microphone is being stuffed in her face asking the same questions over and over. Instead, the rain falls down. The droplets that hit her skin freeze. May digs her nails into her palm until she bleeds. The blood freezes over, too. 

Klaus hands a joint to May. She takes it. 

There, in that courtyard, stood eight adults. All May sees, though, is broken shells. 

She takes a drag and hands it back to Klaus. 

“I think it would’ve been better if the wind blew,” Luther mumbles. They all seem to agree. 

“Does anyone wish to speak?” 

The sound of the rain is all the answer Pogo needs. 

May feels too shattered to listen to what anyone has to say. She reaches out for Klaus’ joint. He hands it over and she drags the smoke into her lungs and holds it until the pain fills her. The smoke lights a fire in her lungs and she feels like something inside her is thawing.

She hands it back. Suddenly, Diego and Luther are fighting and the statue of Ben is falling. 

“Hit him!” Klaus chants. Five jabs his brother with his elbow.

Diego throws a knife at Luther, and blood starts to fall. May rushes to Luther’s side and wills the cold to her hands. She holds it to his wound. The cold wasn’t useful often, but at least she can help stop swelling. 

She hears Vanya scold Diego when she retreats inside.

May wishes she were anywhere but here. 

: The Umbrella Academy :

“Forty-two bedrooms, nineteen bathrooms and not a single cup up coffee.” Five stood there, seething. 

“Dad hated coffee,” Allison justifies, setting a drink down on the table. May grabs it and smiles innocently when it freezes over. ‘Sorry,’ she mouths.

“He hated kids too but he had eight of us,” Klaus laughs, putting his feet up. 

May nodded. “He hated everything.” She pulls out her phone. She has thirty messages.

**Biter:** ‘Bored tonight. Come over. I’ll pay 2x. _Sent: 8:32 p.m._

“Who’s that?” Allison makes a move to grab her phone but was too slow. 

“No one.”

“Come on, May. Is it a boyfriend?”

Klaus snickers. He knows what she does for a living. They had bumped into each other a few times. Each time Klaus looked worse for wear. She was sure she did, too. She wonders if each time he could smell the sex on her skin the way he smells death.

“It’s just work,” May says, shooting a glare at Klaus.

Five looks curious. “Work? At this hour?”

May groans. “Yes. I work late shift.”

“Very late shifts,” Klaus says, nodding sagely. 

**Biter:** ‘3x as much if you get here in 10 min’ _Sent: 8:34 p.m._

Her client shoots her an address. 

She bites her lip in contemplation. Her normal rate is already very expensive, so three times as much can hold up her rent for months. She sends a winky face to confirm she is on her way. 

“I’ve got to go.”

“Me too. I’ll drive you.” Five gets up and searches the drawers for keys.  
“You can drive?” 

“I’m older than I look. Besides, I need a decent cup of coffee. Now, where do you need a ride to?”

She clambers into the car with five and provides the address. The ride is awkwardly quiet until Five breaks the silence.

“Why did you lie?”

“About?”

“Your job.”

May sighs. How is she meant to tell her brother that she's an escort? She’s too used to the disappointment in people’s eyes to let it break her. Even those who pay her look down upon her like she’s scum. 

“I didn’t. I just left out a few things.”

May’s poor excuse goes past Five’s ears. Five glares at her carefully. The car lurches to a stop. May doesn't hesitate to clamber out of the car as quickly as possible and wander into the hotel. 

The Biter waits with open arms. She feels cold.

In the elevator, he leans down to nibble on her ear. She pretends to like it. May plays her faux smile, pearly whites glistening in the bad lighting of the elevator. She sees the way he leans in, eyes sparkling with want, and she plays the part she’s meant to. He bites hard on her collarbone. She relishes in the feeling of warmth blossoming to the newly forming bruise.

They wander into their room and he pulls her close, yanking her back, hastily peppering her with kisses. He’s kissing words against her ear and all she can feel is the heat of the bruises and the way his breath feels against her neck. She may not even like him, but she adores the way the motions kindle a fire under her skin. 

When they’re done and he is fast asleep, she pokes at the bruises just to feel something. 

The ice in her blood turns to water for a moment. 

She might be called May, but she still feels like Eight.


	2. bruises (of the past)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! I got more feedback than I though I would on this. Thanks a lot for that. Hope you enjoy the chapter.

May is not brave, would never be brave, and never really cares to be. She never makes a sound and takes her suffering with silent acceptance. To her, life is solemn and lonely, with only numbers as companions. 

To Sir Reginald Hargreeves, May and her siblings were just another thing to flaunt. May hates the way he treated them. Rather than beautiful beings grown within the wombs of their mothers who need love, children were merely a weapon to train with and throw off to the wet nurses when he was finished.  
This became very obvious once they began displaying powers. 

 

Already winter had wrapped its claws deeply into the foundations of the city. It seemed to come earlier this year, haunted by the children staring out the window.

“Six, look!” Four pointed at a dog walking down the sidewalk. Six gasped. They had never seen a dog before. Sure, they were aware of their existence, but being locked in a mansion made seeing everyday things a little harder. 

Eight scowled at the way they fawned over the dog. As usual, she was cast off to the side, forgotten. At seven years old, she already felt loneliness creep into her soul like ice. 

Like the others, Eight was bought off an unsuspecting mother, unwanted. So, as they all did, she felt unimportant. They were nameless, assigned a number, and treated horribly. 

Number One was the exception. He was the first to display his talent.  
They were at the dinner table, waiting for their food. Barely formed words flew across the table. The group of two-year-olds seemed content enough. Nanny Beatrice set down the plates announcing dinner. Peas and chicken. One hated peas. 

“No want!” He shouted, a tantrum starting to make its way through his system. 

“One, peas make you big and strong. Don’t you want to be big and strong?”

“No!” He screeched, slamming his ravioli-sized fist into the table. This was not unusual. The children often threw tantrums (with the exception of Eight, who accepted her suffering quietly). However, the way the table broke in half when One hit it was not usual. Wood chips fell around them, and splinters hit the ground. 

Eight eyed her father for a reaction. All she saw was barely concealed pride. 

His training started soon after the incident. 

Nanny Beatrice never served peas again. 

Four’s powers seemed to be different. His never developed so much as got harder to ignore. Everyone had assumed who he was talking to was imaginary friends until they realized specters haunted him. He was much too young when Hargreeves first locked him into the mausoleum. Eight snuck in with Six that night and kept the ghosts at bay. 

Five was six when he sneezed and reappeared across the room. At first, he couldn’t teleport with his clothes on. Thankfully, the training changed that quickly.

Two threw blocks too accurately for a five-year-old. The blocks turned into knives once Hargreeves found out. 

Three’s lies always morphed to truths.  
“I heard a rumor...” she whispered into One’s ear, “that you’ll give me your dessert tonight.” An argument often followed when she used her powers like that. Father ignored the chaos it brought. 

Six had demons living under his skin. When they were four the monsters begged to be let out. They writhed under his skin. The next day he woke up covered in ripped apart pillow fluff. Eight hugged him until the monsters stopped wriggling. 

Seven disappeared for weeks in August before reappearing. Her personality was more muted. She was quieter. Eight held her hand when Seven seemed too lost inside her mind. A new nanny they were supposed to call Mom stayed with them after that. 

Once their powers were figured out, they were put into training. Sir Hargreeves ruthlessly trained the children, used them as weapons, then threw them to Mom. Eight’s hadn’t shown up yet. 

Eight didn’t like the way her siblings were taken from her. For hours on end, they would be away from her, and she grew anxious. Seven always tried to calm her down, but the sounds of violin never tamed her nerves. 

“I just want to see them more. We’re only nine. We deserve a break.”

Seven tilted her head. “They need to train to save people, though. Even if it means we have to be alone.” 

Eight frowned softly. “We have each other, silly.” 

“Only because we don’t have powers. We aren’t special.”

Eight rolled her eyes. “That’s not true. We’re both special. Just a different special.” 

“We’re just ordinary.” 

“That doesn’t make us any less special. You’re already the greatest violin player ever!” 

Seven blushed. “Not true.” 

“Yes true. You’re the best violin player in the whole wide world.” Eight insisted, shoving Seven gently. “Besides, if being special means spending more time with Dad, it’s not worth it.”

Seven giggled and continued playing the violin. Eight pretended she didn’t notice the way the sad melody made the room vibrate. 

Eight glanced back at her siblings. They breathed on the window, staring out for glances at the real world. The small pocket of a home they had was not enough for their young curiosity. 

The cold from outside crept into the mansion. The brick let the ice-cold temperatures bounce off the walls and creep into the children’s bones. An unforgiving breeze slammed against the windows. 

Eight felt drawn to it.

She pushed herself up and towards the window, placing her hand against the glass. The window fogged up in response to the warmth of her hand. What happened next, though, was terrifying. 

The fog slowly dissipated before it began to crawl up her skin. Water vapor wrapped its way up her arm, transforming to water then ice as it climbed her limbs. It was pain galore. Her hands were burning from the heat of the vapor and her shoulders were iced over, bitter chills shook her. 

She bawled until her throat hurt because of the pain.

After that, she was stolen away for training. Her father made her heart grow icy. Seven stopped playing the violin for her. 

: The Umbrella Academy :

May wakes up alone. Next to her is an envelope. She grabs it and counts the bills meticulously before shoving it in her jacket pocket. 

She curses when getting up, the mirror across the room shows her the damage of last night's adventures. Bruises cover her skin. They’re the shape of fingers and hickeys and all looking at them causes is pain. 

She silently prays for the way her hands burned when she was a child. 

May puts the shower on the highest temperature and watches the steam rise into the air. 

‘You are useless,’ a voice in her head reminds her. She can’t help but agree. Father had spent years training her and forcing her into anything but ice. ‘Focus on moving the water, Number Eight, not freezing it!’ He always shouted at her. She always froze.

When she finishes her shower, she grabs her things and leaves.

She passes a woman and man grumbling on her way out.

Klaus is on the couch when she gets home. He’s talking to someone she can’t see. There’s already a joint in his mouth.

“You do know breakfast is the most important meal of the day, right?” May says, a glint in her eyes.

Klaus nods. “What better way to start your day than high?”

May shrugs. “With eggs? Orange juice, maybe.”

“Like I told Ben, you can’t smoke eggs.”

“Can’t say I didn’t try.” 

Pogo stalks into the room. May nods at him on the way out, not willing to listen to Klaus’ scolding.

She finds herself in Vanya’s room. It’s bare, save some music sheets on the desk. It’s the smallest room in the house. 

She yearns for music to play. She would never admit it, but she often went to Vanya’s recitals. She stopped going when Vanya wrote her book. 

“May?”

“Oh, Allison. Hi.” 

Allison and May never got along. Then again, neither did most of their siblings. 

“I thought you left.”

“I did.”

Silence. A few beats went by. 

“You have bruises all over you, May.” Concern laces itself in Allison's features. Her voice carried like the twinkle of a bell.

“I know.” May’s voice falls flat.

“Who did this?”

The hall they stand in drops a few degrees. May grits her teeth. “You don’t get to know.” The bruises were a sensitive subject. Every time Klaus and May saw each other on the streets he carefully didn’t mention them. In return, May never mentioned the way the bags under his eyes had grown. 

“What do you mean I don't get to know? I’m your sister!” Allison is distressed now, her face contorted and ugly with anxiety. May hates that it’s directed to her. 

“My personal life is none of your business. You made sure yours was none of mine when I only found out you had a wedding because of a damn gossip magazine.”

“That’s different, May I-”

“You what? Because it seems to me you were glad to cut all of us out as soon as you saw the chance to rumor your way out of here.” Her voice was unforgiving. Allison didn’t deserve her emotions. No one did. 

“What’s going on?” 

May turns on her heel to look at Vanya. “Nothing. I was just leaving. It was nice catching up, Allison.” She keeps her mouth sealed and walks into her room. The lock clicks and the sound echoes through her room.

Nobody notices the way the ice seeps into the walls. 

: The Umbrella Academy :

Luther is pacing like a caged animal. He’s chewing on a pouch of food. It looks like he still eats the pouches of space food he has grown used to. May doesn’t have time to dissect what it means. As much as she would like to ask him how the Moon was, they were never close. Luther’s explosive, emotionally driven personality always struck the wrong chords with May. They are both fueled by emotion, but May is fueled by the way she pushes her feelings down. Luther lives on the way his heart feels. 

A stark contrast.

The two are in the kitchen, zealous in the way they avoid each other. Not a word is said between them. That says more about their relationship than anything. Even as children the two rarely spoke. Years apart did not make the heart grow fonder. 

May thumbs one of her bruises. She needs some air. 

Luther bumps into her when reaching for another packet of food.

“I’m sorry,” Luther murmurs. It’s loud enough for her to hear, though. 

May is stuck on pause, not knowing how to talk to him after so many years. Her hands shake and the air feels like winter. She has no clue why, but her mind turns to Vanya when the apology is spoken. Poor Vanya. Always neglected and ignored. She wishes she had been better for her.

“I’m not the one you should be saying that to.” 

_You aren’t the only one who should be saying it, either._ May thinks to the ways Vanya had been neglected. She wants to apologize, but how can she after so many years? 

The silence speaks for itself.

Each step that takes May out of the room feels harder than the next. She’s acutely aware of the way her breath is not icy. She does not know what this means.

: The Umbrella Academy :

She has an appointment with the owner of a mall around nine. He tends to just talk out his problems with her, cry on her shoulder. He was often an ugly, sobbing mess. May didn’t like him. She put on her practiced smile anyway and waited by the mall entrance.

A familiar blue light flashes along with a soft _blip_ noise. Five. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” He questions. His hair is all over the place.

“I could ask the same of you.” May furrows her eyebrows. 

“I’m here to catch up with an old friend.” 

“Someone you met when you time traveled?”

Five nods. He looks mildly frustrated. “I suppose you’ll want to come along now?”

“Not particularly, but I have some time to kill before work,” she says, glancing at her watch. She still has thirty minutes to wait. 

“Ah, yes. Your mysterious occupation.” Five adjusts his tie. “Well, let's get this over with. Dolores is waiting.” 

Before she can protest, Five has popped into the building. May grumbles before opening the door her client keeps unlocked for her. 

“You could’ve used the door.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

He leads her into the building towards one of the generic department stores. May wonders what the hell Five’s friend is doing hiding out here. A sign boldly announces ‘Senior Tuesday.’ 

Five slowly walks towards the mannequins, a smile on his face. May observes quietly. He shines a flashlight onto the middle mannequin.

“Delores,” he whispers. Years of love string itself into the name. May turns away to give him a semblance of privacy. She owes him that much.

Two people stand at the entrance, weird masks in hand. May recognizes them but she has no idea from where. They pull on the masks and May notices the guns in their hands. 

“Get down!” May commands, pulling Five’s mannequin out of the way. She throws up her hands and a wall of ice shields them.

“He’s got a partner with him!” One shouts. She recalls the voice as the one from the hotel. The couple was arguing on her way out. 

The wall gets shot at relentlessly. The sounds of bullets hitting the ice encourage the pair to run. 

“You get out of here, I’ll follow.” May pushes her hands out, causing the wall of ice to rapidly move towards the shooters. 

Five didn’t have to be told twice. He first attempts to teleport, but Delores seems to make it too difficult for him. May lifts a second wall to serve as a shield. Five dashes towards the cover, barely avoiding the gunshots. 

Police sirens sound out over the gunshots. May dodges a few more bullets before sliding out of sight.

The pair seems shaken.

“He jumped again,” one says. 

_They know about Five’s powers?_

They retreat quickly, the only sign that they were there are the shells on the floor and holes in everything around them.

May grabs Five’s arm and rushes up to her client's office. 

“What the hell are you doing?” He holds the mannequin so tightly his knuckles are white. 

“I’m saving our asses from police questioning.” She glances at her watch. She’s an hour late to her appointment. She doesn’t care. 

May grabs the key she knows is hidden on the doorframe and makes quick work of unlocking the door and taking out the tape that shows she was ever here at all.

“How did you know what was there?” Five’s detective skills turn on. 

“Lucky guess.”

He scowls but says nothing else.

They clamber out of the office window and into the night. She leaves the key on the windowsill. 

May never really liked this client anyway. 

He never made her warm.


	3. bullets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm kinda shocked at the positive input people have been giving me. Thank you to everyone who has commented so far. <3 Enjoy the chapter!!

When Vanya publishes her book, May learns what betrayal feels like. 

When she learns a way to fight back her eternal winter with bruises for kisses, May quickly hardens against the insults thrown her way. She is used to others criticizing her for what she does. People are crass and insensitive with their tongues. All that matters to her is that it’s easy money and makes her warm, if only for a moment. She never expects her siblings to say anything. She is proven wrong when one does. Her heart turns to a glacier in the face of that betrayal. 

_May was cold in more ways than one. She was always distant and quiet, never speaking to the others. She iced over the world and never pulled herself out of her head. She drowned whatever was going on in her mind with lovers who warmed her bed._ The passage repeats in May’s head like a broken record. She knows it’s true, but it still hurts to hear. Her sister might as well have called her a whore.

After reading the book cover to cover twice, hoping, praying that it changes what’s hidden inside, May fills her schedule with clients and throws it in a fire. It is too wordy, anyways. 

She watches as each page burns away the memories of a life left behind. 

Occasionally, she is convinced the smoke from the fire sits in her lungs to taunt her.

May stares blankly at the ceiling. Somebody is rummaging through the trash downstairs. Her bet is that it’s Klaus. Her brother is like a raccoon sometimes. 

She opens the window and peeks out. He’s eating a dirty bagel from the trash. 

It’s times like this she wonders where Klaus left his common sense (if he had any in the first place). 

“I love you! Even if you can’t love yourself!” Klaus shouts down the street. Whoever he is shouting at is long gone.

“You can’t like the trash bagel that much,” May says, climbing down her fire escape. 

“You’d be surprised. Best bagel in the city.” He holds it out to her. 

May eyes the small bite marks that were definitely made by rats. “I think I’ll pass.”

She jams her finger into a bruise to keep herself focused. 

Klaus eyes May. She acts like she doesn’t notice. “Why don’t you tell them?”

“Tell who?”

“You know what I mean. Why do you hide your job? The way you live?” He takes a drag from his joint. “I can’t imagine hiding all of this from them.” he gestures to himself. “They aren’t worth being sober around.” Smoke blows out with each word. She feels it stick to her skin like rain.

“What I do is different, Klaus. You know that. It doesn’t hurt me the way your addiction does.” She feels like she is trying to convince herself that. May knows what she’s saying isn’t true. The bruises are a physical reminder of the way it hurts her. She knows an addiction is an addiction, though. 

She’s in a battle between her control and the only source of warmth she can feel. 

Klaus flicks his joint onto the ground and stomps on it. He leans into her ear. “Keep telling yourself that.”

She doesn’t enjoy the way his voice creeps down her spine like a spider.

: The Umbrella Academy :

 **Eye-Guy** Today at 2? _Sent 12:13 p.m._

May looks blankly at her phone. 

She squeezes the cup of tea in her right hand while she types out a reply. The cup burns her hand for a moment before growing cold. She turns the cup upside down over the sink. The tea clunks in the sink, it’s new icy form crumbling at the impact.

The harsh noise of the ice breaking causes her ears to ring. 

Her client texts back eagerly. She leaves him on read. 

She doesn't care. 

Allison is in tears when she walks into the kitchen. May moves out of her way and sits at the table. She glances at her, unsure if she has the right to ask what was wrong. May isn’t sure if she even cares enough in the first place.

She blinks once, twice, before deciding it isn’t worth the trouble and starting to leave.

“Wait, May.” Allison’s voice sounds like the men she works for. Desperate. For some reason, this makes her stop in her tracks.

“Do you think I’m a bad person? That I-” her voice breaks into a sob. “That I’m a bad mother?”

May’s demeanor softens. She purses her lips before answering. “I think we all made mistakes out of desperation to leave this place behind.” She pokes a bruise on her collarbone. “If that makes us bad people then so be it. At least we’re better than Dad was.” 

Allison seems to breathe in the answer. “Thank you.” It’s a whisper, but thanks nonetheless. She knows Allison is saying thank you for much more than her answer by the way she fiddles with the hem of her shirt.

May isn’t sure how to react, so she leaves. Her client is waiting. She doesn’t have time to make amends. 

She wishes she could say she is shocked to see her brothers sitting sketchily in a van. When she notices them she ducks her head into her trench coat, trying not to be seen. Of course, this attempt is futile. They call her name and gesture her over to the van. She glances at the building longingly before striding over. 

“Are you following me?” Five looks enraged. May is sure this would be a terrifying look on him if he wasn’t thirteen. 

“If I say yes can I leave?”

Luther grunts something akin to laughter. Klaus makes giggling sounds in the back of the van. Delores stares. It’s strange the amount of personality the mannequin has. 

“You shouldn’t be here,” Five says. May pretends to take that into consideration before shrugging. 

“I think I’m allowed anywhere in the city.”

“Except Club Jaguar. They banned you for giving the bartender one too many brain freezes,” Klaus adds unhelpfully. She shoots him a glare before turning back to Five. 

“What even are you doing here?” Five’s voice is calculated. Not unlike a soldier.

Klaus snickers. He sways a little. He’s higher than usual. “Haven’t you heard, brother dearest? Our little sister is an escort.” 

May’s heart aches when the words tumble out of Klaus’ mouth. She knows he can’t help it, knows he's too high to process things with a clear mind. Understanding this does not make her soul feel any less shattered. The way Five and Luther gape at her almost brings tears to her eyes. She chokes back her feelings and bites her lip. 

Her hands are blue with cold. She needs to invest in some gloves.

“I’m not your little sister. We’re the same age,” May mutters before turning on her heel and disappearing into the building. She needs to leave before she does something she regrets.

May is almost hurt when no one runs after her. She is used to the disappointment, though. 

Slush courses through her veins. Nothing maims her more than the ice scraping against her skin. She makes sure of it. 

Only she can hurt herself.

May is early to her appointment by ten minutes. Eye-Guy doesn’t seem to mind.

“You’re freezing,” he groans into her mouth. His breath stinks. 

“Then do something about it,” she says. The practiced words of seduction roll off her lips and must taste like honey judging by the way he hungrily mouths at her. 

She has black-and-blue welts trailing up her back when they’re done.

Each bruise swells. She still feels a biting chill on her skin.

He slips money into her coat before kissing her.

He says he loves her. She doesn’t reply. The practiced smile does not reach her eyes. 

She wants him to drop dead. She steals files from his office out of spite. 

She sees Klaus hit his head on Eye-Guy’s snow globe on her way out. Five catches her eye for a moment. May clenches her fist and walks faster.

: The Umbrella Academy :

May suspects the ice in her hands has found its way into her soul. It nestles there like a bird in its nest. Watching. Waiting.

She is unaware of what it is looking for. She hopes she can find it. Maybe it will make her feel whole again. Then again, she’s been running on empty for a while now. She’s not sure how would feel to be complete. 

She holds Mom’s hand tightly, listening to her siblings down the stairs. 

“You didn’t kill Dad, right Mom?”

Mom’s face is blank, a generic smile is plastered on her face. “Your father was a great man.” She stops and twitches before continuing her pre-programmed spiel. 

May shuts her eyes gently before backing away from her mother. She always forgot the way the cold made Mom’s circuits short out. 

Diego defends their mother downstairs. May leans against the railing, skin pink with mild frostbite. 

“She’s not just a vacuum cleaner you can throw in a closet. She feels things, I’ve seen it!” Diego protests down the stairs. The railing grows icy. May’s knuckles are white from gripping it too hard.

Luther and Allison vote to turn Mom off. 

Diego, Vanya, and Klaus vote against it. 

Klaus claims Ben would agree with him. The way he hisses at thin air after his declaration says otherwise.

“Votes not final yet. We still need Five and May,” Allison says. May is pleasantly surprised that someone remembers her.

“I vote we keep her on,” May calls from up the stairs. The whole ground is ice, now. She is tempted to put up a sign saying ‘Caution: Frozen Floors.’ 

Mom is wandering downstairs now. 

“How long have you been there?” Vanya asks.

May shrugs. 

She pretends she can’t hear the family arguing more downstairs. 

When the family meeting is over, May is in her room. She sits on her bed wearing nothing but a bra and shorts. Bruises ranging from hours to weeks old sit in harmony on her skin. The stark contrast of them and her sickly pale skin is sickening. May’s shame overtakes her captivation with the mutilation, however.

Ever since Father died she has felt her grasp on her emotions slip. They are beginning to get the best of her and she feels out of control. 

Before her family reunited she had power over herself. Now, though, with her skin sporting reminders of the warmth she could not have, she isn’t so sure. 

Sometimes she recalls the way sunlight kissed her skin when she wasn’t frozen. Usually, it feels like another lifetime. 

May pulls a heated blanket around herself and lets sleep take her. 

: The Umbrella Academy :

When May dreams, she dreams of the past. 

Father is writing furiously in his book. Eight is sitting on top of a swimming pool. It’s frozen. 

“Now melt it,” Dad commands.

Eight doesn’t know how. She tells Father this. 

He is angry. “How are you meant to be useful if all you can do is freeze things? You can’t even control the ice for Heaven's sake!” 

“Ice is the easiest,” Eight justifies. Her voice is meek. She doesn’t want to talk today. Her throat is too dry. 

Father throws a pen across the room in anger. It’s heading straight at her. Eight flings up her hand, and a wall of ice forms in front of her. She would feel proud of herself if she wasn’t too busy shivering. Father insists she wears summer clothes in the dead of winter. 

‘How are you meant to get used to your power if you try to hide from it?’ He would say.

Eight is angry. It’s a bone-crushing fury that leaves her palms bloody from clenched fists. 

Before they left to come here, Seven and herself had gotten into a fight. She wishes Seven would understand. Eight does not want her powers. If anything she wants to be ordinary like Seven. Seven doesn’t understand how lucky she is. She doesn’t know that she’s the best thing one can be in this world: ordinary. 

Being extraordinary… it brought too many expectations. Eight can’t live up to the standards placed by her father. She just wants to play with her siblings. 

Her blood is so cold it feels like it’s boiling and she feels jealousy flow through her. 

Eight is so wrapped up in her thoughts that she doesn’t notice the way the pool is boiling away around her. 

Father brings her home after that. In the notebook, he writes of fire and ice. 

‘ **Eight:** Discipline in own emotions hinders abilities. Ice is the default of the emotionless demeanor or, as I suspect, the control over her own emotions. Alike Seven in this sense, however, her insistence to lack vulnerability creates a sort of control over power.’ 

Eight isn’t old enough to care about what he writes in his book. At least, that’s what she tells herself. She keeps her mouth shut and glimpses out the window. 

Eight doodles herself and Seven holding hands. She never gives the photo to Seven. She wishes she had. 

The pen is still lodged in ice at the pool. 

They never went back. She doesn’t complain about that. 

She hates the pool. 

Her dream comes to a stop when bullets start to fly. 

May wastes no time waking up. Pulling herself from her sheets and into the hall is the easiest thing to do in the world when it’s possible those she loves are at risk.

She is still only in a bra and shorts.

The people in masks are standing in the hall, Diego is too close to them for May to put up a wall. She runs forward, hands glowing blue. 

“Cha-Cha, shoot ‘em,” one yells. 

“Get out of the way, dumbass.” It’s the woman from the hotel. She’s wearing a pink mask. 

May turns to face her, and the barrel of a gun is in her face. “Where the hell are your clothes?” The woman-Cha-Cha, May remembers-asks. 

May replies with a punch to the face. This distracts her long enough for May to grab Diego’s hand and pull him towards the living room. She pretends not to notice the way he winces. 

They sit and hide behind a table. 

Father’s portrait is shot up. The bullets suit him.

Diego stupidly makes a noise. May says a prayer for his low IQ. 

The two criminals begin to free fire. Feathers from the couch and plaster from the walls fall to the ground. A bullet ricochets next to May’s head. 

She hears a shout. Luther lifts up one of them and yanks them by the collar. Allison, ever the lady, punches the other. 

“Should we help?” She asks Diego. He nods.

They take down the man holding Allison up with ease. 

Vanya wanders in amidst the chaos. Blue mask makes the mistake of thinking he can mess with her. May grunts and a wall of ice blocks Vanya from the strike of a morning star. 

Blue mask has no time to be shocked before Luther grabs him by the waist and throws him to the floor. 

May grabs Vanya’s hand and pulls her up the stairs and to their bedrooms. 

“Stay here, Vanya. Please.” May loathes begging, but she hates the idea of losing her sibling more. Vanya nods hesitantly. May bumps into Klaus dancing in a towel down the hall. She leaves him alone. He’ll just get hurt if she asks him to fight. 

May hears a crack and jumps down the stairs to get into the living room faster. 

“Luther!” 

Her brother is writhing on the floor in pain. Allison and Diego are grabbing at him. Pain is evident in his features. 

“We need to get him to Mom,” May says and places her cold hands to Luther’s already bright red injury. 

Above them, a clinking sound resonates. Luther pushes his siblings out of the way before getting hit by the chandelier. 

May can smell his blood before she sees it. Her brother towers over everything, looking more monkey than man. 

“Would it be distasteful to make a monkey joke?” May asks.

Nobody says a word. 

“Mom,” Diego gasps softly before bounding up the stairs. 

Allison and Vanya are speaking to one another.

Luther is gone.

The familiar feeling of loneliness creeps into May’s heart. She needs a drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you liked, please consider comments/kudos. See you guys soon


	4. band-aids (don't fix people)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy. Sorry this chapter is kind of dry and long.

May doesn’t bother putting on a shirt. The bruises on her back hurt enough to make her feel only a mild chill. The pain distracts from the way fear ripples through her. Her siblings have her under their eyes, judgment at the ready.

A false sense of confidence colors May’s skin quickly. She will not fall to the scrutinizing words of others. Even if it’s her siblings. 

This confidence doesn’t stop the way her skin crawls. Their gazes probe at her bruises. For once, they aren’t warm. They just hurt. 

She wonders if bruises will begin to fail her. Unlike people, black-and-blue skin has never disappointed her. It seems that has changed. 

She wishes she spared a moment to pull on a hoodie. The pain suddenly isn’t enough to ward off the cold. 

The quiet does not last long. Her siblings circle her like lions. She stays. She is frozen to the couch.

They take the opportunity to pounce.

“What did Klaus mean when he said you’re an escort?” Luther is the first to pry into her business. Of course.

“It means I drive a taxi,” May says. Her voice is flat. She has had this conversation too many times before. 

“Taxi drivers don’t get bruises like that, May.” Allison tries to look her in the eyes. May picks at an icicle growing off the hem of her shorts. She sees no point in replying.

Vanya tries to touch her shoulder. Just as soon as she touches May, she pulls away, her hand frost-bitten. May acts like she isn’t concerned. If she tries, she can convince herself she isn’t. 

Vanya chooses her words carefully. “Why didn’t you tell us?” 

May shivers. “I was too busy being a slut, apparently. Thanks for my chapter in the book, by the way. It really highlighted my best qualities.” Her voice is full of malice. She knows throwing guilt around does nothing. She does it anyway. It keeps the attention off of her. 

Deigo looks at May with pity. She wants to smack the look off his face. Instead, she bites the inside of her cheek. She reminds herself not to care. Not caring is easier than love.

The chandelier is still on the floor. Noise echoes through the house quietly. It’s like a whisper. No one seems to hear it but May. 

“If you needed money all you had to do was call.” 

Allison doesn’t understand it isn’t about money. Sure, it’s a plus, but money is not her only driving point. May knows she isn’t that shallow.

“It’s not just about that.” 

“Then why, May? Do you even like what you do?” 

May wishes Luther didn’t ask. She squeezes her bruised wrist. The ice under her skin sharpens.

“It’s easy money,” May articulates carefully. “And the bruises… they’re warm when they form.” She says this like it justifies everything. In a way, it does. The justification doesn’t stop the way shame creeps into her heart and grips it.

Her siblings look disgusted and sympathetic all at once when the words fall off her lips.

“I’m so sorry, May.” She can’t process who said it. 

She says nothing. She wants a cigarette to burn her lungs. 

May won’t deal with the way they stare at her. She feels too vulnerable. 

Everyone starts to say things but May has blocked them out. She doesn’t want to listen to their sadness. She doesn’t need it. They shout to be heard and May keeps ignoring them but they just won’t stop.

Icicles are stuck to her fingers. She wants to burn them off. 

May tastes blood. The inside of her cheek is bleeding.

They all think she is bitter and unfeeling. May hates to disappoint, so she will push her emotions down until she ices over. 

She gets up and goes back to her room. 

She stops in front of Klaus’ bedroom for a moment. The room is quiet. Good. He needs rest.

May wraps herself in a heated blanket. The past is waiting for her when her head hits the pillow. 

: The Umbrella Academy : 

It’s midnight on their seventeenth birthday when May finds an escape.

Klaus is in her room. He’s high and smiling for the first time in months. His happiness is contagious. May can’t help but feel ecstatic when he walks in. He’s grinning, and that makes a semblance of warmth grow in May’s stomach. She hopes it lasts. 

“Can I use your window?” He asks, already opening it. 

“Where are you even going?” 

“Party. Wanna come?” 

Her hands are numb. “Yes.” 

The music is loud and everyone is jumping. Klaus screams something about weed before disappearing into the sea of people. May is left alone. 

It’s funny how in a room full of people, she feels lonely.

She locks the sadness where she can’t see it and bounces to the music. Her hair is all over the place and she feels like she’s running through a blizzard but it’s fun.

A woman bumps into her. May is surprised when she doesn’t curse the cold. Instead, she offers her a drink. May isn’t old enough. She tells her this. 

She introduces herself as Raven and asks for May’s name and her age. 

‘May’ and ‘nineteen’ roll off May’s tongue like they’re the answers to the universe. At that moment, they were. Raven has no idea she’s lying. Or maybe she does. It doesn’t matter. 

She lets Klaus know she’s leaving. He doesn’t care. 

After that, they were stumbling out the door, all giggles. 

They’re in the back seat of Raven’s car. May feels warm. 

May lets her fingers crawl up Raven’s arm. Raven explores her neck and May gasps at the way heat explodes under her skin. The night is the start of an addiction and she prays for it to never stop. In the morning Klaus teases her about her hickeys. May just shakes her head and holds onto her frozen tea. 

She starts dragging people home with her, all moans and messy lipstick. Her siblings turn a blind eye. 

Her father brings it up during dinner. She has a bruise the size of a fist on her neck. 

He points this out. 

She gives no explanation. Instead of asking her why or how, he shouts at her. 

“If you continue this nonsense you are to leave my house immediately!” Father takes a bite of his chicken (no peas, even after all this time).

She runs away with eyes red and puffy, hair messy, and lips chapped. 

She doesn’t look back. Instead of ice, seduction becomes her weapon. She almost enjoys the way she can control the lust of people around her. It pushes down the thoughts Father put in her head. 

She’s seventeen and on her own. 

May becomes an escort. She’s always warm after that. 

She ignores the way she hurts. 

She is in control now.

: The Umbrella Academy : 

When she wakes up sunlight is shining through her window.

It’s too bright. 

She has to get out before she melts. She can already tell today is the type of day where she hides behind ice.

“And what do you do?” The voice is Diego’s. He’s in Five’s room, angry. “Sit on the moon for four years, waiting for orders?” 

May winces at the harshness in her brother’s voice. 

“Your brother is missing,” Pogo says while May peeks into the room. 

Her mind flies to Klaus. Worry fills her lungs and she feels like she might drown. She leans against the doorway of Five’s bedroom and wishes she could boil her skin. The world is too cold. She feels a glacial chill crawl up her spine and she shivers.  
“May?” Diego seems worried. 

Ice crawls through May’s veins and she can feel the way her blood stops flowing. She is biting her tongue so hard that it starts to bleed. She has shoved too many emotions away and it’s coming back to bite her. 

May can’t stop shivering. She needs to scream but she can feel the worry coming off Pogo, Luther, and Diego in waves. 

She stumbles her way into Klaus’ room, not bothering to knock. Some part of her hopes he is there, asleep or high or talking to Ben’s ghost. Anything but gone. He isn’t there. Her joints start to freeze.

A box of cigarettes sits on his bed stand and that’s how she knows he was taken. He would never leave them behind. Not by choice. 

She lights one and breathes it in like it’s life or death. To her, it is. 

When smoke fills her lungs and melts her blood, she almost cries in relief. 

Diego and Luther stand awkwardly at the room’s entrance. They’ve always treated her like a little sister. Like she needs saving. 

She wants to shout again.

“We need to find Klaus,” May commands. Her voice is unforgiving. 

“He’s off doing drugs. He’s fine,” Luther looks at May like she’s crazy. 

She flicks an icicle off of her fist. Her blood is back to slush. 

“No. He was taken. See?” She holds up the cigarettes. For a moment, she forgets they haven’t seen each other for 13 years. Their confused faces remind her they are no longer close. They are strangers connected by the thing string of fate. She wants to cut the string. 

The bruises on her back feel burdensome. She wants to be warm. She takes another drag.

“Is it so hard to think he would leave?” Diego’s face is that of a hardened vigilante. He is all business.

“Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think?” Luther suggests. May huffs.

“I’ll find him myself then.”

Pogo gently touches her arm while she rushes out. “Miss May, I believe I have failed to inform you of your mother’s passing.”

May tugs her arm away. She can do nothing about her mother. Mom may be dead, but Klaus isn’t. 

There is no time for sadness. Not when her heart is slowing its beat. 

May suspects she has three days before it stops.

When she passes the thermometer, the Mercury drops to the bottom. May ignores it. 

: The Umbrella Academy : 

May leaves the files she stole on Five’s bed. She hopes he can use them. 

Diego and Luther follow her out of the house, looking like lost puppies. She points this out. Both of them deny it. 

They don’t question the way she is wearing six layers. 

She starts heading towards the lab. It’s as good a place to start as any.

Eye-Guy isn't there. She’s glad. His breath always left her chewing gum for hours after. He tastes like desperation and alcohol. 

“This is Five’s van,” Luther says, rushing up to it. May couldn’t care less. She knows Five is capable of caring for himself. 

Luther shakes at the handle, but the door is locked.

The door rattles and May turns to see Diego unlocking it. Impressive.

She reminds herself to call him when she locks herself out of the apartment. 

Luther and Diego both try to get into the car at the same time. They gawk at one another when they bump into each other. They do it again. May smirks. They might have names now, but they are still One and Two at heart.

“I’m One,” Luther complains, beginning to climb into the car.

May slides in before he gets the chance. “First is the worst, dearest brother.”

Diego snorts.

May is on autopilot, searching through things. Her hands are too cold to thumb through pages so she just hands them to Luther and keeps looking. Shards of ice scratch at her veins. 

She doesn’t like the way tears fill her eyes. It takes more self-control than she knows she has not to let them shed. 

Diego snaps her out of her trance with a whistle. “I know where to find Five.”

He’s holding up Vanya’s book. She wants to burn it. 

Her brothers leave her in the car. She’s used to being left behind. Libraries aren’t her thing, anyway.

She snaps out of her personal pity party when an explosion makes the whole lab go up in flames. She’s mildly surprised when she sees her brother get thrown back with it. Only mildly, though.

She gets out of the car and hurries to Five. “Wake up,” she says, slapping his cheek gently. He groans and lifts himself up. 

He has an air of hopelessness about him, but his jaw is set in a way that reminds May he lived through the apocalypse. “I’ll never get those files.” 

He utters it like it’s a curse. To him, maybe it is. 

“What files?”

Five gets up. “You wouldn’t know.”

She ignores the blatant bitterness in his voice. “Maybe I do.”

He’s already gone when she says it. Soft blue light illuminates her face for a millisecond. 

If she can’t be useful to Five, she can at least save a few lives. 

She heads towards the burning building, ice at the ready.  
She thrusts her hand outward, coating the building in ice. The ice melts into the fire, and the heat starts to fall. 

The firetrucks turn the corner when she’s done. They seem disappointed that the fire is already out. 

A police cruiser rolls up to a stop next to May.

“Ma’am I’m going to have to ask you to get off the premises.” A woman gets out of her car. The badge she flashes at May says ‘Detective Patch.’

She looks the woman up and down, assessing her. May has grown a sixth sense for whether or not someone is trustworthy. She passes the test.

The woman radiates kindness. She wishes for a moment her father had been more like that. May quickly reprimands herself for thinking about the past.

“I’d love to, Detective, but I think I have some information of interest.”

Patch glances at her, curiosity obviously growing. May smiles at how easy it is to manipulate her. “Two people with masks left the building right before it blew up. I think it’s connected.”

May is lying. She hadn’t seen the two leave the building. She knew they were prime suspects, though. Her best bet was that they had Klaus. And if she could convince the police force to conduct a city-wide search, Klaus would be safe sooner. She hopes the woman trusts her enough to take her word for it. 

Detective Patch nods. “I assumed as much. Your eyewitness account is helpful. If you could, go find someone to write down what you saw so we can analyze the evidence.”

May frowns. Patch is all business, then. May switches up her tactic.

“Actually, I was hoping you could help me. Those masked idiots took my brother.” She pauses to fake a sob, “I just really want to find him.”

Patch bites her lip in contemplation. May waits for her answer. 

“You’re one of Diego’s sisters aren’t you?” 

May shakes her head up and down, hoping the woman likes Diego enough to help his sister.

Patch wrings her hands and sighs. May smiles.

“I’ll help you find them, then.”

May thanks her vigorously. She feels so happy that the slush in her veins is water. She likes the way it feels. 

May heads back to the van to grab her coat. It’s covered in ash and there is something written in the dust.

Her blood is ice again.

: The Umbrella Academy :

She remembers the hotel The Biter always brings her to. He’s always going to shady motels, not wanting to risk being seen by his rich associates. She doesn’t mind. He gives her the most bruises.

She pokes at one on her arm.

May tells Patch to put away her badge. Police aren’t welcome where they’re going.

May finds the motel and wanders into the lobby. An unpleasant man is sitting in his chair, staring at a newspaper. Why he elects to read a newspaper from a week ago she will never know. 

He gazes at her. “Do I know you?”

She plays her practiced smile and twists a strand of her hair in her fingers. “Yes! I checked in last night. It seems I’ve forgotten my room number. If you would be so kind and help me with that it would be very much appreciated.” 

Patch looks at her funny. May convinced her to hide her badge when they were outside. 

The man looks at her lustfully. She is used to the way she’s looked at as an object, but it doesn’t stop the disgusted feeling that rises in her throat.

She uses his lust as a tool to save her brother. He puts down his bowl and asks for her name. She replies with Hazel.

Keys on the man’s laptop click and he writes down the room number (and his phone number, but she won’t ever use it). 

“Here you go, sweetcheeks.”

May despises the nickname, but she has what she came for. 

She sends a fake smile his way.

She disregards how when she and Patch leave the room he grabs lotion from the counter. 

Patch turns to her. “Why did you do that?”

“Do what?” May doesn’t have time for this. The clock is ticking on her brother’s life. She can discuss her methods of manipulation later. 

“Play into his fantasy.”

May shrugs. “It’s easy. He doesn’t expect attention, so when he gets it he goes nuts. I got the room didn’t I?”

Patch seems not to know how to argue with that. 

“Should we call Diego?”

May hands her flip-phone to Patch. “You can try. He’s probably busy.”

May grabs Klaus’ pack of cigarettes from her pocket and smokes one while Patch makes the call.

“So which sister are you?” Patch looks curious. She’s eying one of May’s bruises. 

May pulls down her sleeve. “Which ones do you know about?”

“He doesn’t talk about his past much, but I know enough about the Umbrella Academy to assume.”

“You know what they say about assuming,” May inhales smoke and lets it ruin her lungs. She doesn’t care. 

“You’re The Arctic, yeah?”

“Not like it matters.” May drops the cigarette to the floor and steps on it. “I’m done waiting. Let’s go.” 

May climbs the stairs and walks down the hall. The card has ‘Room 225’ written across it. She hopes it’s right. The motel owner’s number sits under it.

Patch shows her badge to the cleaning lady and takes the key to the room.

May prays Klaus isn’t dead. She hears thumping coming from the room. 

Patch opens the door. 

May sees Klaus and instinct takes over. She rushes to his side and pulls off the duct-tape. He’s only in a towel.

Her hands are cold but Klaus doesn’t seem to care. He’s whimpering.

There’s blood all over him and May feels rage crawl up her throat. 

“Are you okay?” 

Klaus just keeps crying. He won’t stop. 

May forms an icicle and cuts the tape off of Klaus’ arms. Patch takes out her gun. 

A door creaks open. 

On instinct, May throws the icicle at the door. It lodges itself into the wall. She forces Klaus down when she hears gunshots. 

“Get out of here. I’ll find you.” May hugs her brother. Tears threaten to spill over. 

She knows she has failed him by not finding him sooner. 

“Police!” Patch shouts. 

May admires her stupidity and bravery.

“Hands behind your head, asshole.” Patch keeps her gun steadily aimed at the man. 

May remembers how his partner is always at his side. She knows it’s a trick when he listens to what Patch says without complaint. 

She throws up a wall of ice on all sides. A gunshot ricochets off the wall. Patch grabs her stomach. There’s blood, but not enough to kill her.

May briefly hopes Klaus got out okay. 

The wall falls and an icicle forms in May’s hand.

She clenches her fist and throws an icicle in the direction of Cha-Cha.

They’re gone.

She turns to Patch. “We need to get you cleaned up.”

It hurts knowing Klaus is wandering the streets. She promises herself that she will find him.

: The Umbrella Academy : 

May is exhausted when she trips down the stairs to Diego’s room. 

Patch insists that she can’t go to the hospital. She asks to be taken to Diego instead. May doesn’t question it. 

Five is laying on the bed, surrounded by Luther and Diego. 

May pushes Patch into Diego's arms and leaves the room.

She has to think. 

May is dying. 

She feels like shit and her hands are too cold.

She calls the number under ‘225’.

New bruises are formed. 

She’s still cold when they’re done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Leave a comment if you would like. Kudos and comments are much appreciated!


	5. broken people (run the world)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy!

May wakes up with regret on her lips. 

She has bruises that are not warm covering her body. The man next to her reeks of cheap cologne and sex. 

Ice covers the blankets. The man is shivering. 

May pulls away from the bed and stares at herself in a mirror. Bags are under her eyes. Her hair sticks up in too many directions to count. Ugly purple marks cover her neck. 

She wants to rip them off. 

She jumps in the shower and stands under the boiling hot water. If she closes her eyes she can pretend she has a normal body temperature. 

She throws her things into her arms and hesitates before leaving the room.

May takes money from the man’s wallet. 

Her services are never free. 

She stumbles out of the building, pain sparking up her legs with each step. Instead of warmth, all she feels is hurt. 

May pays for a taxi with the money she stole.

Her heart feels like it’s pumping out lead. 

Klaus is home. She can tell from the new bloodstains trailing down the hall and into his bedroom. 

She doesn’t intrude. She knows no apology will be enough. She should have checked on him right after the fight. She was too selfish, too wrapped up in her own head to notice her brother was gone. May has to watch Klaus pay the price. 

Dust hangs in the air and floats through small sunbeams. May wishes she could turn to dust. 

She presses down on one of her bruises. Frozen tears stick themselves to May’s face. 

She watches as Five questions Klaus. With each question Klaus tenses up, pulling into himself. 

Klaus and Five argue. Five seems suspicious. Anger is beginning to crawl up his throat and May is impressed with how well he holds it back.

May sees through the way Klaus jokes through the pain. She does the same thing with sex.

In the hall, blood is on the floor.

Guilt nestles its way into May’s being. The new scars that are painted into Klaus’ skin are her fault. If she would have saved him earlier he’d be okay.

She reminds herself to sigh. To keep the face of an uncaring person. She might be May but she remembers to act like Eight. Guilt has no place in the face of someone as cold and unforgiving as herself. 

She can’t forgive herself. Guilt consumes her. 

: The Umbrella Academy : 

Diego is in his room, a case of knives in hand. May leans on his door frame. “What are you doing?” 

“Showing those bastards they shouldn’t mess with us.” There is an unspoken thanks hanging in the air. May knows Patch is alive because of her. Saving a life doesn’t stop the guilt of Klaus’ trauma from hanging over her. 

“Is Patch okay?” 

Diego nods. “Bit beat up but she’s fine. The station thinks I’m the one who did that to her. She can’t say she was doing independent investigations unless she wants to be fired.”

May bites her lip. She is surprised her brother is playing as a scapegoat. “Why you? It’s not even a knife wound.”

Diego shrugs and pushes past May. He’s heading somewhere. 

May won’t admit it, but she’s scared of being alone. She asks to come with him. 

“Do what you want. Just stay out of my way.” 

Klaus is in the main room. He looks worse for wear to say the least. Grief sits in his eyes and pain seems to be integrated into his very DNA. 

Diego points out how bad he looks. May elbows him. 

“Why, thank you. Hey, where are you two going?” Klaus eyes his siblings up and down. 

Just as May invites him on the trip, Diego is telling him no. May elbows him again. 

“Quit acting like you won’t give him a ride. You’re basically his chauffeur.” With that, May walks to the car. Diego and Klaus shortly follow. 

May sighs at the way Klaus nurses vodka like it’s milk. 

Diego tries to talk to him. He’s silent. 

May grabs the vodka and chucks it out the window. It’s too early for drinking. 

The glass shatters on the road. Someone yells at the car. May doesn’t care. 

Klaus groans in protest but May ignores him. 

They stop in front of a building. Veterans of Foreign Wars. 

Klaus leaves the car. His steps are rhythmic like a soldier. He holds his coat close like a blanket and walks in. 

May follows. 

She notices her brothers slight limp. The way he is chaos and order all at once. He covers himself in items of the past like a habit but keeps the soldier's vest and dog tags on his person. It doesn't take a detective to figure out what happened. Not with the way he is ushering into a place for veterans like he belongs there. It’s then that May realizes why horror is written in his eyes. 

She doesn’t take away the shot glass when he throws it back. 

How does someone help their brother who lost someone only a moment ago when to everyone else it has been a lifetime? 

May doesn’t have an answer. 

She has seen him wrapped in grief before. She’s seen everyone coughing up despair like they are it for breakfast. When Ben died, her siblings broke. Their sadness floated over the breakfast table and choked them. It’s something they don’t talk about. 

The statue of him still lays in the backyard. No one lifted it back up. 

She supposes death isn’t the same for Klaus as it is for everyone else. He can see the ghosts when they hover over his shoulder. 

Humanity is left waiting for a sign to take them back to the time a loved one was alive. Klaus doesn’t have to depend on that. He breathes and the dead breathe with him. 

It must be suffocating. 

She watches as he strokes a photo in the corner of the bar. He’s in tears and kissing a patch. 

May turns to give her brother privacy. She pretends she doesn’t notice the way he strokes a photo like it is his lifeline. 

He’s crying.

Old men are staring. Veterans, May realizes. One of them is walking towards them. May feels ice attaching her feet to the floor.

Her fingers curl around the hem of her shirt. 

Diego sneaks his way to Klaus’ side while she is distracted. She doesn't know how he got here.

Klaus wants them to leave, she can tell. 

“This bar is for vets only,” one of the veterans say. May glares at him. 

Klaus scoffs. “I am a vet.”

Diego’s face is full of shock. May watches the way the veteran's hands fidget. May almost pities him. If it weren’t for the ring on the man’s fingers-shiny, cared for-she would flirt their way out of this. 

Klaus is on edge and so is everyone else in the room. May observes the way Diego’s knuckles go white, ready to punch. She knows he won’t, but nobody else seems to. 

The Marine (she sees the ‘Semper Fidelis’ on his vest) wants an apology. May wants to shove an icicle through his eye.

Klaus is giggling behind May. 

May decides to take the wheel. Men are too bigheaded sometimes.

She peers up at the man. She’s smaller than him but then she sets her jaw like she’s seen Five do so many times and stands her ground. “I suggest you back off. You won’t like what happens if you don’t.”

The Marine laughs. “If you think I find you threatening you have another thing coming. I served in Vietnam and-”

May puts her finger to his lips and smiles sweetly. Her eyes are full of spite. Ice spreads over the man's lips and she kisses them when they’re frozen over. “Thanks for understanding.” 

On their way out, she grabs the photo Klaus was stroking. She knows she is supposed to act withdrawn and passionless, but with her heart slowing down to a stop, sentiment has begun to creep its way into her last moments. 

She needs to go home. 

: The Umbrella Academy :

Sometimes all May can hear is her own breathing. Ice crackles in her lungs and makes her throat dry. It’s familiar. 

Five is in his room. Chalk is all over the walls and May is tempted to wipe it away. She wants the world to end. Call her narcissistic, but it only seems appropriate the world stops when she dies. 

She cannot comprehend the way a world without her can spin. She hates her selfishness.

“You being a nerd isn’t going to save the world, you know.” May watches Five from a distance. 

Delores is sitting on the armchair. 

Five ignores her. He always has. They were never close.

Luther asks about the math on the walls. 

“It shows whose death could save the world.”

May thinks it’s bullshit. 

Death cannot save the world. It’s the last resort for when one is too lazy to undo the wrongs of the past. It’s lazy. May says this. 

Five doesn’t agree.

Luther’s confusion is evident. 

May feels the way her wrath begs to be let out. She doesn’t like the way Five talks like lives as if they are chess pieces.  
The worst part is how he sees no problem with this. For once, Luther agrees with her. 

“If I do nothing he’ll be dead in four days anyway.”

May closes her eyes and feels shards of ice poke at her insides. She’s uneasy. 

She has two days. Two and a half tops. She's not sure she's ready to die.

Luther and Five are arguing but May is worlds away.

She snaps back into the real world. The gun in Five’s hands is replaced with Delores. They were talking about something. The apocalypse? Dinner? She acts like she knows.

May puts the picture she stole on Klaus’ bed before she leaves with her brothers. 

They’re speeding down the road. May likes the way adrenaline replaces the ice in her veins.

A briefcase is in the middle of Luther and Five. It’s strange. 

She is freezing but the shivers have long gone. No point in them when the problem is her and not the weather.

She wonders briefly if she’s just imagining it. The glacier under her skin feels so real. In some sick way, she’s happy it is. She can’t imagine hurting anyone other than herself with something she can't control.

She needs a cigarette but she gave them to Klaus hours ago.

It’s hard to breathe. She has too much to hide. 

Anxiety floats off Luther and Five in waves. 

The car stops. May gets out.

She throws up under the shade of a tree. 

Her siblings don’t fret over it. She’s proven one too many times she can take care of herself. They don’t bother. She wishes they would.

If they did, she might tell them. Maybe. 

The conversation plays in her head. 

_I’m dying. My heart can’t pump my blood because of the way it’s freezing over._

In her head, they cry and fret over her. They make it better.

May knows it won’t happen. It’s nice to pretend, though. 

Bruises on her spine throb. 

A car speeds down the road. 

The masked bastards are in it. May wants them to crash. She’s tempted to send ice under their tires and let them swerve right into a telephone pole. She doesn’t, though. Five needs to negotiate with them.

She keeps watch over Five. He doesn’t need it. May knows this.

Cha-Cha pulls out a gun. It’s pointed at her brother’s chest. Whatever he says causes her to put the gun down.

May’s eyes lazily follow Cha-Cha’s movements to the phone.

She’s dizzy. She keeps her glare on Cha-Cha’s back anyway.

The wind carries the sound of an ice-cream truck. 

Klaus waves. The ice-cream truck speeds up.

Shots go off.

The sound of bullets ricocheting off of the truck echoes through the fields. 

May clenches her fist. 

Cha-Cha and Hazel jump out of the trucks way. May feels gleeful at the way they fall into the pavement. 

May ignores the sound of cars crashing and anticipates her enemies next movements. 

Father’s training never really helped her with the way the ice erratically behaves. It acts as an instinct. 

While Luther shoves Klaus and Diego into the car, icicles are flying out at Cha-Cha and Hazel. 

Hazel grabs a gun. A wall of ice appears in his face before he can shoot.

May is light-headed. 

She feels herself fall. Someone's arms are around her and her vision is fading. 

Her energy is drained and she just wants sleep.

She remembers the dust in the sunbeams. She suddenly doesn't want to be dust, anymore.

Her siblings are saying something but it is incoherent over the sound of her heart struggling to beat. She wants to tell them it will be okay. She isn't a liar, though, so she keeps her mouth shut.

Two days left to live. Soon it will be one. She debates asking her siblings to fret for her, just for a moment. She knows she will never act so desperate. She falls asleep with her head against the window. Ice makes its way up her arm. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a mess. I'm sorry about that. Comment if you liked it, I guess. Have a good weekend, everyone.


	6. breeze (of before)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: Mentions of death as well as a description of dying itself. heavily detailed. be safe.

Voices bring May back to the edge of awareness. Her siblings are talking. She hears bits and pieces. Something about the apocalypse?

The topic doesn’t matter to May. Nothing matters when one’s days are numbered. She has until tonight. 

She doesn’t want to say goodbye. Then again, at least she gets the chance. Ben didn’t have the luxury of knowing when he would die. He just did. The statue outside is a painful reminder.

A groan catches in her throat. She still feels dizzy.

The ice on her shoulders hasn’t even begun to melt.

When she opens her eyes the first thing she sees are her fingers. They’re blue. 

“Apparently we fought together against whoever was responsible,” Luther says. His voice sends a migraine though May’s skull. She bites the inside of her cheek and deals with it. She used to love the way the hurt felt. It kept her warm. Now May isn’t so sure.

It’s easier to let pain spread than to fight against it.

Her heart beats slowly. She can feel each spasm and how her blood creeps through her like a ghost. She distracts herself with other things. 

She needs something to eat. 

Her siblings are too wrapped up in whatever horror Luther has told them to notice when she walks out. Typical. 

The dinner table sits in the middle of the room. May hates that damn table. Sadness floats over it and chokes her. It’s something they don’t talk about. Everything that sent their family awry started at this table. 

Vanya’s rebellion against oats and how it took her away for weeks. 

Five’s running away. 

Father announcing Ben’s death. 

May misses Ben. She misses him so much that when she thinks about it her breath is taken away. They all love him so much. May misses him more than anything. 

She should have known better than to become so attached. Attachment is dangerous. 

Her mind reels, memories distracting her. Ice covers her toast. 

Memories. They’re just so addictive. 

Her freezing veins remind her she is not so far away from Ben. He is dead and she will be soon. It’s a morbid comfort, but comfort all the same. 

Her fingers are blue, and she’s breaking apart. 

She shuns her bad thoughts. She just wants to eat. 

She has ice cream for breakfast. 

It’s her last day alive. She keeps reminding herself of that with each spoonful of cookie-dough ice cream.

May stares down at the ice cream and stabs a spoon into it. 

She wonders how she would be if she had any other gift. If she was able to bend light or read minds. Maybe she would be the same, but her fingers would be bloody and burnt instead of blue. 

She has melted ice cream on her shirt. She doesn’t mind. It’ll freeze back over. 

She briefly considers if she has any aptitude towards ice-cream making. She’d make a flavor called ‘Umbrella Academy’ and just mix in her tears. 

Yummy.

She slips back into the living room. 

Vanya is in the room. 

“A family matter. So you couldn’t bother to include me?” Vanya’s hands are trembling, but the coat dwarfing her frame hides it well. 

“I have been left out of everything for as long as I can remember.” Vanya is on the verge of tears. Her hands are clenched, now. Everyone is silent.

May wants to help. She doesn’t know how. She feels like her lips are sewed shut. May cannot fix this, so she does what she knows best. Break everything. The words are rolling out of her mouth before she realizes it. 

“Congratulations, Vanya. Would you like a medal? A cookie? Face it, we were all fucked over by Dad. We played his lab rats. All of us. Talk it over with us. Don’t just shut us out because you feel fucked over. We’re all at fault.” 

The daggers under her tongue are uncalled for but she knows it needs to be said. She knows Vanya needs a reality check. In Vanya’s eyes, pain grows. May feels sick. She hates doing this to her. May can only hope Vanya will loathe her after this. If she hates May, it won’t be so bad when she dies. The fewer people that miss her the better.

May glances at the man next to her sister. She’s met him before. He paid for three nights with her. The bruises stayed for weeks. He’s rather violent. May knows how to keep her hands from trembling. Even with ice crawling up her arm she controls herself. She crafts her next words carefully. 

“Hi, Leonard. I forgot to ask all those months ago so I guess I’ll ask now,” a cruel grin covers Mays' face (it’s a fake smile, but nobody seems to notice). “How could you afford me? I mean… you’re just a carpenter. And I require a hefty price.” 

She waits for an answer. 

When she doesn’t get one, she walks out of the room. 

She hates herself for it. 

She realizes those words are the last Vanya will hear from her. She fights back her sobs. Emotion will just get in the way, today. She needs to focus. 

Tears cling to her cheeks and she wipes them before anyone sees. They turn to ice crystals in her hand. It’s almost beautiful. 

She wants it to melt.

May knows she cannot undo the years of neglect her family went through, so she just has to show them she isn’t to be missed. 

May can only try to undo so many wrongs before tonight. 

She’s worried she doesn’t have long enough. Her heart shudders. It’s a cruel reminder of the Reaper looming over her head.

The ice cream on her shirt is frozen over. 

She flicks it off. It leaves a stain.

: The Umbrella Academy : 

Her footfalls are heavy. She has only so much time to finish her last wills of life. With the apocalypse hanging over the world, she supposes she might as well do what she wants.

She can feel the ice on her hands tearing open her skin. It hurts. She’s bleeding but May knows she doesn’t have time to deal with it. 

The blood freezes over. 

She wants to go back to her family. May yearns for a moment with them that isn’t haunted by the past. Only a second of child-like smiles and tousled hair will bring her content.

They are too shattered to have that moment of happiness. May knows this. It doesn’t stop her from wishing. 

Her apartment door creaks open. She hasn’t been here since Dad died. It almost feels wrong to walk into the room.

The mirror across from the door leaves her bruises on full display. They’re healing. Rather than black and blue they are ugly shades of yellow. 

She already looks like a corpse. Her lips and fingertips are blue. Her eyes are dull. 

She wonders why her siblings let her out of the house. 

She reminds herself they don’t care. 

For once, May is happy they don’t. That will make her death easier on them.

She wonders if she will get a statue. 

_Probably not,_ she reasons. None of her siblings will even notice she’s gone. 

She’s glad.

Ignoring the shots of pain with each movement, she changes her clothes. Coats and gloves won’t help today. Not when the cold infects her very insides.

A picture of The Umbrella Academy hangs over the couch. She hates it, but taking it down feels like a betrayal. Ben is still alive in this photo. They were ten.

When May was ten, she stopped talking for a whole year. She wanted to see if anyone would notice. They didn’t.

Even then she was a shadow in her own home. 

Frigid, bitter air around her made her siblings shrink away. She couldn’t control it back then. Some would argue she still can’t. She knows better. If they knew the cold she restrains inside of her they would applaud her strength. The Arctic sits in her lungs and sucks the warmth away.

Her puffs for air are jagged and labored. Crystals of ice layer under May’s clothes. 

It frightens her that the control she works so hard on is the very thing killing her. 

Her strength is dwindling. She just wants to feel the heat of someone beside her. The yellow on her hands reminds her that doesn’t work anymore.

Her phone chimes. It’s a client. 

She throws her phone across the room.

It shatters.

Clients aren’t useful if the bruises can’t save her. 

Reminders of when she was Eight haunts May’s dreams. In that ugly photo above her sofa, Eight looks like ice and her teeth are clenched. She thinks about how little she’s changed. Maybe she should have just kept the name Eight. 

She leaves just as quickly as she came. The only sign she had been there being the shattered phone laying on the ground.

Outside, the lamp-posts are bent and car alarms are singing. 

May (or is she Eight now?- she can’t tell) doesn’t notice.

Arctic winds sweep behind her.

: The Umbrella Academy :

She finds Luther on the floor in tears. May has the words ‘I’m dying’ on her lips but the way he’s sobbing keeps her from saying them. Packages cover the floor. It looks like a whirlwind swept through the room. Each package is unopened. Luther mourns four years of his life. May holds him. 

For once, he doesn’t back away from the cold. 

Allison wanders into the room. Luther responds better to her comfort than May’s. She's almost offended.

She starts out of the room before Allison calls to her. “You can come, too.”

May doesn’t know how to argue with that. She trails after her siblings. Allison is holding onto Luther like he is made of glass. 

It’s strange to see.

Allison leads them into an attic May didn’t know they had. A fort coated in dust sits in the middle of the room. May feels numb. 

They don’t notice.

She watches while her siblings ogle at each other and sip on old coke. Allison is wearing that necklace again. May refuses to pretend to understand the sentimental significance of this. It will make her care too much. 

She feels like she’s intruding. She turns to leave but Allison pulls May back into the tent and covers her with a blanket. 

“You belong here too, May.” Allison beams at her. Luther laughs at the icicle poking out of May’s nose. For some reason, she laughs, too. 

It’s beautiful the way they are happy for a moment. Her childhood almost sparks back to life until her heart shudders. Her blood flows so slowly it’s practically stopped. A single tremor is all her heart can stand before giving out. May’s breath catches and the blanket around her flutters to the dusty ground. Her eyes go wide with sorrow. She has a few moments at best.

She can feel the coldness of death as it crawls up her fingers. She watches as they begin to freeze. It’s not dissimilar to the coldness that creeps into her everyday life. May grieves for herself.

“I-I have to tell you something,” May gasps, speaking is strenuous but breaking her sibling's hearts is harder. “I’m dying.”

Her stomach twists into knots. She doesn’t want to die. Not in front of her family.

Not like Ben.

All around May, ice is spreading. May is thankful for the way it avoids her siblings. It is a small mercy.

May can see the way Allison’s mouth is moving but she can’t hear it. Luther is grabbing her and they're running downstairs. She follows them. Luther is holding May but May is not in his arms. She watches her own limbs flop with the impact of each step. 

She’s confused. Why can she see herself? Why? She’s right here. Why is nobody looking at her?

She finds Klaus and asks. He doesn’t answer. Tears are in his eyes and he’s screaming. May leaves him alone and goes back to Luther and Allison.

May furrows her eyebrows. Mom and Pogo are using a defibrillator on her. 

Ben observes from the other side of the room. May watches him. 

_Why can I see Ben?_ she thinks, keeping an eye on her other self on the table. Someone is sobbing but all May can see is Ben. She realizes it, then. 

She’s dead.

Ice creeps up the walls and all over the floors

May walks over to Ben and grabs his hand.

He squeezes. 

“I missed you,” May whispers, eyes on her own body. 

“Why didn’t you tell them? You could’ve told them.” His voice is calm but there is a gentle rage hidden in it. May wants to shrink away. 

“It’s better to suffer in silence than let people know you are suffering,” May says. It makes sense to her. That’s how she lives her life. Well, lived. 

“You’re wrong.”

May knows. Even as a ghost she’s shivering. 

Her life does not flash before her eyes as people say it should. It feels more like water slowly rising over her head. Relaxing in a strange way, but deadly.

It does not feel so much like suffocation as it does a release of worldly worries. She wants the water to recede.

She can hear voices. They go in and out of her consciousness. They aren’t coherent.

Bits and pieces of her childhood flash.

Ben’s smile when he wins at Scrabble.

Luther and Allison whispering happily into one another’s ear.

Mom’s hugs.

Her father acknowledging a success of hers.

The way Vanya plays the violin.

It isn’t a bad life, but then she remembers.

Ice crawling up her spine.

Ben’s body, mauled and destroyed.

The bruises on her back.

Her siblings locking her out.

May throwing up walls to protect herself from pain.

It wasn’t a good life either.

Each memory turns into tears flooding her eyes. She’s drowning in reminders of Vanya, Ben, and Klaus. Suffocating under the weight of Five, Allison, Luther, and Diego. With each memory, she wants to shout away the pain flooding her lungs. She watches each and every time she thanklessly held up her family from the shadows. The way her childhood flashes through her mind in shadows, protecting silently, reminds her of the pressure to be selfless. It’s strange to see how, later in her life, her siblings think she is selfish when her whole life is an endless record of giving. 

She drags herself out of her memories. They ache. 

May frowns at the figure in front of her. Dad.

“You shouldn’t be here.” He’s angry. Always so angry. 

“No.” For once she agrees with him. She thought she had more time. 

“You do not realize, Number Eight, your most fatal flaw.”

“And what is that?” May’s voice is scratchy. She’s angry too. She just hides it better.

“All your life you have been a vicious force to reckon with. Your personality causes you to suppress what you perceive as weakness. At first, I thought it was your strength. It seems I was wrong.”

“I spent my whole life thinking emotion was a disease because of you.”

“Do not blame your hardships on me, Number Eight.”

Even in death, he doesn’t call her May.

“I’m not Number Eight anymore. My name is May.”

“I fail to see the difference between the two. Both have a severe lack of control. Both bite off more than they can chew. Both are too scared of vulnerability.”

“Leave.”

“I speak the truth and you curse me for it, child.”

“I’m not a child. Not anymore.”

 _I don’t think I ever was._ May thinks.

The door creaks. Father vanishes. In his place is a little girl. 

The girl regards her sadly. She radiates an ancient power. May knows who it is. God. “I have watched you, you know. You’re a rare sort of thing. Little care for yourself but when it comes to others… I almost feel bad for the gifts I’ve given you.”

“Almost?”

“If you had learned to control them, we wouldn’t be here right now.” 

“What do you mean by that?”

“If you think I would be so lacking in creativity as to only give you the ability to control ice then you’re crazier than I thought.”

May feels herself break apart piece by piece. A fire lights itself in her stomach. Voices scream into her ears. She can’t understand what they are saying. It is all nonsense. 

God touches her shoulder. It makes May shiver.

“Before you go, remember you are not only ice. A river floods over only when a dam is built in a place it should not be. You are the river, so do not continue being the dam. I will give you one more chance”

Everything flickers. Somethings happening. 

May turns to Ben but he is gone. The world is spinning and she feels lost. She wants her life back.

A clock ticks.

Voices bring May back to the edge of awareness. Her siblings are talking. She hears bits and pieces. Something about the apocalypse?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't care for this chapter but I tried my best. Comment/Kudos if you enjoyed :DD


	7. burn (of after)

Voices bring May back to the edge of awareness. Her siblings are talking. She hears bits and pieces. Something about the apocalypse?

May’s heart aches and a drowsy numbness plagues her senses. She feels drunk, but not a drop of alcohol has passed through her lips. With her eyes sunken and shivers wracking through her, she feels too vulnerable. 

Death occupies her thoughts and it is mind-numbing. A scream is hidden in her throat. Something tells her to save it for later. She does.

She suspects she has until tonight. Her heart is slow. 

The care she has for herself- if she had any in the first place -has cooled and settled in her core. She can’t reach it.

Frostbite tickles her fingers with its sharp teeth. Her fingers seem to be stained blue. She knows it is her blood refusing to pump through her (too cold, May’s world is too cold). 

May wants to sleep. She feels drowsy and light-headed all at once. It is strange how her thoughts are slow. She is fading. 

Her life is growing thin. 

May’s thoughts are cluttered, verdurous with the ever-haunting gloom that follows the threat of death floating over her.

Air fills May’s frozen lungs and she winces.

Her siblings are talking over the sounds of her labored breathing. They try to include her but she lays, staring. 

A single thought plagues her mind in a voice she does not recognize. ‘A river floods over only when a dam is built in a place it should not be. You are the river.’ It echoes in her head like an earworm.

Vanya is there. So is Five. She’s too busy trying to think of anything but that damned voice to care.

She craves toast. She tunes back into the conversation.

“...the apocalypse is coming in three days. So I went to Commission headquarters and intercepted a message that was meant for said lunatics.”

_Lunatics?_ May thinks. Her mind automatically goes to the two idiots with the masks. Hazel and Cha-Cha.

Five continues, but this time with a name May knows. “Protect Harold Jenkins. He must be responsible for the apocalypse.”

“I know that name,” May says, voice hoarse.

Five turns to her. “You do?”

“Yeah. My job requires me to do background checks on people to make sure they’re not serial killers. One of my clients must have had that name.” 

Silence envelops the room for a moment before her siblings burst out with arguments. 

May rolls her eyes. This is why she never pays attention to family meetings. Everything she says is looked over. She sits next to Klaus. He leans into her. He’s sweating. She briefly wonders when he had his last hit. She opens her mouth to ask but is interrupted.

“Klaus you’re with me. Luther you can watch May here,” Diego sends a brief look towards May. He’s worried again. May knows by the way he deems it appropriate to leave Luther as a babysitter. 

Klaus shakes his head and groans. 

“He’s too tired. Maybe later,” May translates. 

She’s fluent in ‘Klaus Shenanagins.’

Diego badly fights down a look of disappointment before retreating towards the car. Allison and Five follow. May doesn’t say goodbye.

Luther lumbers up the stairs before May can say anything. 

She’s fine with it.

She holds Klaus and gently rocks back and forth. He’s whispering a name too quietly to hear. 

He’s running a fever.

: The Umbrella Academy :

She has a glass of whiskey in hand when in a fit of madness sends Luther her way. His eyes are crazed. He’s grabbing the whiskey out of May’s hands and drinking it. He reaches for more when May grabs the bottle and ices it over.

“What the hell, Luther?!”

He ignores her and reaches for another drink. May’s movements are too lethargic to keep up. He’s downing something from Dad’s cabinet before May can blink. Glass crashes on the floor.

Klaus is giggling behind them. “Holy shit, you’re drunk. And you busted into Dad’s liquor cabinet. He’s gonna be so pissed.” Klaus’ voice drips with ridicule.

He’s holding a rope for some reason. May assumes it has to do with the sweat.

“Get him. Dad, do it now.”

May tenses at Luther’s request. Suddenly the ice in her veins is sharp again. She’s ready to fight.

When Luther grabs Klaus by the neck, instinct takes over. She has saved his ass in too many bar fights to lose him to her own brother.

Ice spreads across the floor and wraps itself around Luther’s feet. He breaks out of it easily. 

New plan, then.

She slides across the ice, little care for herself, and places her hands on Luther’s chest. Ice is crawling up his throat and his lips are already blue.

“Let him go, Monkey-Man or you won't live to see the apocalypse.” It’s an empty threat, but Luther doesn’t know that. He’s too drunk to see through her bullshit.

Luther lets go.

May is ready to chastise him but he’s already across the room, moping. 

May’s blood is pumping too loudly for her to hear the conversation. Adrenaline blends with the ice.

Klaus is comforting Luther, pulling the drink away. Whatever he is saying works. Luther is grinning a giant, dopey grin. But then he’s crying on Klaus’ shoulder, heartbreak evident on his face.

May’s heart pumps loudly.

Luther gets up and is striding across the room. He’s on a mission. Klaus is running after him but May stops him. 

She tries to say, “Find him later,” but she doubts that’s what she really said. Klaus nods though. He leads her to the couch. He looks worried. His lips are moving. She can’t hear it.

He’s sweating. She pats his cheek and hands him some ice.

He stares. 

She needs to sleep, so she does. 

: The Umbrella Academy :

She’s alone when she wakes. 

Her ears listen for a signal that anyone is home. All she can hear is Pogo pacing.

Her head feels like it’s filled with sludge.

May shuffles across the room, blanket dragging after her.

There’s a paper on the bar. 

‘Went to find Luther. Don’t wait up. ~ K’

The handwriting is shaky and there’s a stain on the paper. 

She should go back to sleep but the idea of Luther and Klaus out there alone, both incapacitated, makes May nervous. 

She pulls on a jacket and is out the door before Pogo can ask any questions.

The search is lonely. She has little to go off of, so she’s wandering the streets. It’s a cold night (or is it just her that’s cold?).

May’s feet lead her through the city. Lights twinkle and the sound of laughter travels down dark alleyways. May doesn’t linger long enough to know why they’re laughing, but the smell of rum floating in the air says enough.

For her thirteenth birthday, she shared a bottle of vodka with Ben and Allison. They saw teens in movies do it, so they figured it was what they were meant to do. When it hit midnight and they were no longer twelve, they drank.

It burned her throat, but she giggled through it. 

Ben laughed. It was hearty and full. Allison grinned through tears. 

“This stuff sucks,” Allison declared. 

May agreed, nodding eagerly. 

She still found it hard to talk. Ben was the same way. 

Allison always filled the silence with celebrity gossip.

“I want to be a celebrity one day,” she said, a distant look in her eyes. It looked like joy but May wouldn’t know. The memory is too distant.

“You’re already a celebrity,” Ben pointed out. He was right. All of them had a reputation that proceeded them. Except for Vanya. Guilt stabs through May’s heart and she ignores it.

She was cold. Thankfully, vodka does not freeze. She took another sip and gagged at the taste.

Mom found them and shuffled them back up the stairs, chiding them. She seemed pleased they were getting along, though.

May sniffles.

She misses Ben.

“That guy was _huge_. Do you think he has any idea he should shave?” It’s a random girls voice. She seems high. Her keys are jangling in her hand. May hands the girl come cash and tells her and her friends to call a taxi.

Small acts of kindness before her death might increase the possibility of going to Heaven rather than Hell.

She knows there’s a possibility they’ll just buy drugs with it, though. 

May wanders into the club the group of girls came out of. She feels overdressed. 

She pulls her jacket tighter around herself and squeezes her way through the door. 

Music is pumping through the building. May can hardly hear the shouts of the people next to her. The lights are going crazy, playing in a rainbow. People are jumping up and down around her, hardly noticing the way the room drops a few degrees when she enters. She’s shivering. 

She covers her ears and starts looking for her brothers.

It’s hard to see over the chaos on the dance floor, but, thankfully, Luther is the size of Goliath.

Luther is grinding against some girl that very obviously has a furry kink. Klaus is nowhere in sight.

“Luther!” May shouts, trying to be heard over the madness. 

Luckily, Luther hears her. “May!” 

He wraps her in a bear hug. He drops her quickly, though. 

“You’re cold!” He giggles. 

May nods. “Yeah, that’s kind of my thing.” 

_The thing that will get me killed,_ she thinks bitterly.

She asks him about Klaus but Luther is already back with the girl. He’s too high to be coherent in any way. At least when Klaus is high he can perform basic functions. 

May rubs her face in frustration.

People form a circle around her. She’s making the room too cold and everyone can see their breath. It’s releasing from everyone's lungs and floating to the ceiling. May almost apologizes for the way she’s ruining their fun. Then again, they can go without being party-goers for one night. 

A man with a bowler hat salutes someone. He’s on his way over to Luther. May clenches her fists, punch already winding up. 

Klaus comes out of nowhere. He has bags under his eyes, and that's all May sees of him before he’s jumping on Bowler Hat’s back. 

Luther is cackling, too busy with a girl to notice the way Klaus yells for help. 

May is freezing. It feels likes she’s trapped under ten feet of snow.

When Klaus falls, the snow boils. His skull sends a loud _crack_ through the room and May breaks. 

With energy she doesn’t realize she has, she is in the face of Bowler Hat, finger pointing into his chest. One fist clenches his stupid vest. Pure hatred comes off her in waves. 

May doesn’t notice, but it’s suddenly too hot in the room. No one can see their breath anymore. Sweat glistens on people’s skin.

Bowler Hat’s skin starts to grow pink. He starts to scream. It’s animal, the pain that comes out in the scream just encourages May. She can’t feel her heartbeat. She’s gritting her teeth and threats are slicing their way onto his skin.

Bowler Hat’s skin begins to blister and he’s begging. He’s pleading for May to stop, but he killed her brother so she won’t. The scream that was hidden in her throat is making an appearance. She won’t stop it.

Someone pulls her back, wincing at the contact. 

Klaus.

“May, you’ve gotta stop. You’re scaring the furries,” Klaus pleads. May feels too hot. Too warm. This is a first. 

“Y-you were dead. Your skull was cracked. I-I heard it, Klaus, I heard it,” her voice shakes but with fear rather than cold. She almost lost her brother. 

Klaus chuckles. It’s dark, and there’s something in his eyes. He glances around.

A sharp, quick tremor makes itself known over May’s heart. It’s beating. The ice covering her fingers melts away. 

She’s breathing. Klaus is in her face. “Are you hurt?”

She considers the question a moment. Her honest answer is _yes_ but the terror in his eyes makes her rethink her answer. Her heart is burning. Her skin feels frozen. Her blood is flowing too fast. It feels like a river is coursing through her veins. Her body is in harmony.

It feels like a river flowing through her. The voice repeats. ‘You are the river.’

“No.”

She isn’t freezing. She feels like a bruise blossomed all over her body, but for once pain doesn’t follow.

That has to count for something. 

“Me neither. Let’s go find our idiot Number One.”

: The Umbrella Academy :

May is calm again. They are wandering the streets. She’s not shivering, but she can see her own breath again.

Klaus scratches at his forearms. May takes notice of the scar that only hundreds of needles could do. She links her arm with her brothers and helps him walk. 

It’s not much, but it’s all she can give.

He takes it without complaint.

It’s raining. 

When they get home, May leads Klaus to her room and tucks him in. His room too much of a mess for her to navigate through. Klaus sleeps.

May whispers to Ben and hopes he can hear her. “I miss you.”

She leaves her room and sits in the hall, palms covering her face. 

When Luther stumbles home with a girl, she stops them from going too far.

Luther will thank her in the morning. She leads the girl outside after Luther passes out and pays for the girl's taxi. 

Pogo watches.

“I never regarded you as a caregiver, Miss May.”

May shrugs. “No one ever looked passed the ice to see it.”

Now, though, with the ice melting, everyone can see what’s happening. She’s not so sure that’s a good thing.

Strangely enough, she’s relieved when the shivers return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment/kudos if you enjoy!!


	8. blurred lines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy!!

If you’ve never experienced addiction, it may be hard to understand. Imagine, for a moment, that you are haunted by ghosts. Whether metaphorical or not, they still scream in your ears, begging for you to help. 

The ghosts are your siblings, your father, and the way a chill climbs up your back. You experience the gut-wrenching pain of shame every time you fall back into the addiction. 

Imagine, just for a moment, you are warm every time you bruise. A hollow feeling in your chest creeps in from that bruise you begged for just to feel something. The winter floats away and it is just you and whatever person willing to take advantage of your addiction. For now, it feels good to be alive. That feeling, though, fades away as the bruise lightens. You go crazy looking for more, the winter howling for you yet again. 

That’s how it feels to be May. Living on a tightrope, smiling brightly for people she will never trust. But living on the edge is worth warmth for just a moment. She squeezes the money in the jacket she hasn’t bothered to wash in days. 

Her phone is going off but she doesn’t want a client. Terror fills her at the thought of the cold leaving. For once, she doesn’t want it.

 _Maybe freezing to death is better,_ she thinks. 

May looks vacantly at her reflection. 

She’s pretty. She knows she’s pretty. Her whole job depends on it, after all. 

Eyeliner from forever ago smudges her eyes. She wipes it away.

Shortly after Five disappeared, but right before Ben died, they went on one of their most forgettable missions. Allison loves the mission for some reason. She spoke about it for weeks afterward. May never knew why. She considers that mission boring. They went in, May froze someone, they came out. Maybe it is the recognition Allison got with Teen Magazine afterwards that makes her think back to it fondly. 

May doesn’t care. Her days of missions are long gone. 

She is an anonymous woman now. Just like her siblings (save Allison, of course). The Umbrella Academy isn’t mentioned when she lays in bed and purrs into client’s ears. The prying eyes have dissipated, no interest in the story of a has-been. No wake ups at three in the morning, with limousines taking her and her family to questionable locations for the sake of heroism. 

She challenges her own reflection with stony eyes and angry hands gripping at the sink. The blisters on Bowler Hat’s arms fill her head- she did that, she reminds herself- they’re frozen into her brain the same way guilt is. 

May closes her eyes for a moment before opening them again. The fake smile she’s practiced for so many years perches itself on her face. It’s better than the distant look she had merely seconds before. May can tell it’s fake, but no one else can.

That’s all that matters.

She blocks her client’s numbers.

The bite-marks are fading. May wonders why they no longer stick to her skin. She pokes at one, and a dull pain flares up her arm. It isn’t warm. She’s glad.

She leaves the bathroom. Voices are coming from the kitchen. She wanders down the halls, her eyes glassy. No one needs to know that she’s afraid of something she was addicted to only two days ago.

She steps into the kitchen and Five stops mid-sentence.

When May was still Eight, she often did independent studies. Her siblings ignored her, so she filled her time reading about the Arctic. 

May once read that snow absorbs sound, creates silence. Maybe that explains why no one speaks when she enters the room.

She feels small, the way her brothers stare her down. They don’t want her here. They never do. 

She hates feeling vulnerable.

Her defense mechanism is thrown up.

“You guys playing D&D without me? We’ve talked about this, guys.” They hadn’t talked about it. By the looks of confusion Luther and Five give, they’ve never heard of D&D. No surprise there, she supposes. 

“Actually we were just talking about Dad’s murder, or lack thereof, because… Wait for it...  
he killed himself.” 

Luther drops his hand. He’s annoyed. “I don’t have time for your games, Klaus.”

“We didn’t have time for your drug trip last night, either, yet here we are. Hear him out.” May squeezes her fist. Her hands are shaking with cold. 

Five seems to be analyzing the situation. As always. 

“Dad wouldn’t just kill himself,” Luther growls. He towers over the breakfast table. May bites her lip to keep from muttering a King-Kong joke under her breath. 

“You said it yourself, he was depressed.” Five fiddles with his coffee. “Holed up in his office and room all day and night.”

“He’s always been a bit insane,” May points out. “Nobody treats kids like he did without a few screws loose.”

Her brothers argue. 

May picks at a string on her cardigan and zones out. She doesn’t want to listen to the argument. Out of curiosity, she unleashes the pent up emotions she has on her now frozen cardigan sleeve. It melts away. 

Cool. 

She thinks for a moment back to Father’s entries in his journal. 

**Eight: Discipline in own emotions hinders abilities. Ice is the default of the emotionless demeanor or, as I suspect, the control over her own emotions. Alike Seven in this sense, however, her insistence to lack vulnerability creates a sort of control over power.**

Pogo’s voice pulls May out of her trance. 

“Master Klaus is correct.” Pogo takes a deep breath. May fights off the urge to run out of the room. “Regretfully… I helped Master Hargreeves enact his plan.” 

May clenches her fist and bites her lip. Her lips are chapped.

 _Don’t think about it. Push it away._

May attempts to make herself uncaring. Her father was a horrible man, so why should it matter that he killed himself? 

A voice in the back of her head reminds her she does not have to like a person to love them. He was her father. Despite all he did to her, she couldn't help the small morsel of grief from squeezing her heart.

The glee from seeing Father’s ashes has faded. 

Pogo is still talking but May is done listening. She pulls herself into her head. She builds a dam for her emotions, squeezing her eyes shut to focus on plunging her emotions away in the deepest crevices of her mind.

Suddenly she isn’t May anymore. She is Eight, cowering behind the ice and watching as the world flies by her. Her posture stiffens. 

In her mind, her siblings are dancing around her, scared of frostbite. 

She doesn’t blame them. 

Distance is the best way to protect oneself, afterall.

Luther yells and May turns away. Frozen tears are on her cheeks but she doesn’t notice. Uncharacteristically, Five tries to comfort her. She pulls away from him (she does not realize that she, after all these years, is the one pushing her siblings away). 

Luther storms out.

Five shakes his head and disappears. 

She’s left with Klaus and (probably) Ben. 

May hardens when Pogo looks at her with pity.

An apology is making its way out of his lips but May beats him to it. “You don’t get to apologize. You watched as he broke us apart, let Ben die, let Five disappear. You are to blame just as much as he is. He may have created you, Pogo, but that doesn’t mean you had to follow his every whim.” May chokes down a lump of anger hidden in her throat. 

Pogo studies May. It’s the same look she got when she was a child shivering under blankets and crying ice. 

Except, this time, the ice in her eyes is not from fear. It’s a pressed down rage. She hides the rage, too scared of letting it out. This a test of wills, and she will not back down.

If she backs down, she will boil away and nothing will be left.

Pogo glances at her one last time before leaving the kitchen. 

The damned dinner table sucks up the way Father’s suicide has broken them apart.

Klaus laughs and pats her on the back. “Nice one, ICEE.”

She is left alone with the table and her thoughts. 

: The Umbrella Academy :

May erases every rational thought with the need for control. May’s always lives with the room in the palm of her hand. She controls the men that she worked for, directs her family away when they get to close, and breaks everything when it all gets too much.

May controls her emotions like a flick of the wrist, slamming down vault doors so self-control is only half second away. Vanya calls it pulling away from everyone else, May thinks it’s outsmarting everyone in the room. 

“Why do you do it?” Five questions, his child-like figure betrays the harshness he tries to convey with his voice.

May plays stupid. “Do what?”

Five rolls his eyes. “That. You play everyone around you straight into your hand. The others may be oblivious, but not me.”

“Is there a reason for the concern?”

“Let’s call it curiosity and leave it at that.”

May considers his answer for a moment. He purses his lips. If May didn’t know any better she would think he is nervous.

What she wants to say is the concept of anyone being able to entirely understand her is foreign. That she’s always been distant, even before her powers took over. 

On her hand, ice creeps up and makes an exquisite pattern. She guesses she felt rejected, so instead of trying to sort through the hurt, she just avoided it. She started to push everyone away because if they couldn't get to her, she wouldn’t hurt.

She doesn't say any of that, though. Instead, a humorless laugh leaves May’s lips. “None of your business.”

Five nods. “I get it.”

May knows he does. 

She disregards the way this makes her feel. 

When they were children, Five and May did not get along. Their personalities were too similar. They clashed almost as much as Luther and Diego.

May wonders if that will change any time soon.

Five watches her sway in the middle of the room. She feels lost and dizzy. 

Five passes her a coffee. Outsiders do not know the significance of this. 

May does.

“All I’m saying is, think about whether or not it’s worth it. You never know when you’ll disappear. You can’t apologize when you’re gone.” 

A croak leaves May’s mouth, her fists clench and unclench. “If you’re expecting a hug you’re not getting one.”

“Of course not. The day that happens the apocalypse will be upon us.”

There’s an unspoken forgiveness for all the years of build up anger toward each other. 

The weight off of May’s shoulders leaves her hands feeling room temperature. 

May smiles. It’s genuine. “Of course.”

“Ready to save the world?”

There's a certain dread in Fives voice. It reminds May of the way her clients voices break when they are going to announce they found another escort. 

May nods. “That’s what we were born for, isn’t it?”

Five looks his age for that moment. “It seems that way.”

: The Umbrella Academy : 

Some days, when May wakes up, she feels lethargic. Like she’s moving through jelly. Her body screams at her to sleep. Each time she stands black fills her vision before receding. 

On these days, her breath stutters. Her lungs feel broken. It hurts to move. 

It’s tough to deal with it, but her hands grip tightly at her sleeves and she takes deep breaths. 

Klaus is knitting. She thinks it’s a blanket but, honestly, her foggy vision won’t let her see it. 

She’s shivering but the heat on her skin betrays her. 

Days like this make her wonder why she is called The Arctic. 

May leaves Klaus and Five to talk amongst themselves and goes to find Luther. 

Instead, she runs into a rushing Diego. He walks into her and she falls to the ground. 

“Really, Diego?”

He grunts an apology before pulling on some kind of vest. “Where’s Luther?”

May shrugs. “Haven’t seen him since breakfast.”

Klaus helps May up, a questioning look in his eyes when he feels the heat on her skin. 

May turns away before worry takes over his features. 

They have more important things to deal with than her emotional chaos. 

“Allison is in danger.”

More chaos nestles itself under May’s skin with Diego’s declaration.

“We have to find Luther,” May turns on her heel and starts to lead her brothers outside. 

She has an idea of where their Number One is. 

As suspected, he’s sitting in a bar. May holds her hand up, stopping them from marching in. 

“Let me take care of it.”

“Since when have you two been buddy-buddy?” If May didn’t know better, she would think Klaus is jealous. 

“We aren’t.”

Fake confidence radiates in her steps. Luther glances up at her. He sighs and flares at his drink, avoiding her eyes. 

“How are you holding up?” She tried to be nonchalant, but the concern in her eyes betrays her. 

Luther sniffles. “Fine.”

“Liar.” May smirks, leaning against the table.

“What do you want?”

May licks her lips. They’re still chapped. She swipes Luther’s drink. 

“You’re our Number One, Luther. We need you.”

“No. Let Diego lead you guys. I’m done. I've served my time.”

“Family isn’t a prison, Luther.” Her hand rests on his shoulder. “We stick together. All those years apart did this to us.” She points to his chest, then to their brothers hovering a few feet away. 

“Four years up there, May. I believed in him and lost four years of my life because of it.” 

May smiles grimly at him. “He was a shitty Dad, but that doesn’t mean you get to cop out of this. We’ve got a world to save.” 

“What makes you think I care enough to save it?”

She pats his shoulder. “Sometimes, the people you care about are right under your nose. You let them pass you by and then you lose them.”

May shuts her eyes. She thinks of the way she has lost her family in more ways than one. 

“If you’re okay with losing that a second time, go ahead. I’ll tell Allison you said hi.”

“What does Allison have to do with this?”

May takes a sip of the drink. Her eyes sparkle with the same delight a child teasing their sibling’s eyes are filled with. 

“She’s decided to go after our local apocalypse-starter all alone. Typical, really. She’s always had a bit of an inflated ego on missions.” 

Before May can finish, Luther is pushing himself up and out the door. 

May giggles a bit. 

She trips over her own feet on the way out, dizzy. 

: The Umbrella Academy : 

The smell of blood is overwhelming. 

Allison’s blood coats Luther’s hands. 

May doesn’t process the way she cries loud enough to wake the animals outside. Even if she could she doubts she would care. Luther’s sobs play like a song in her ears.

The room is freezing, ice growing on the walls. 

May watches Luther cup Allison’s cheek.He’s desperately whispering pleads into her ears, rocking back and forth. 

Heat grows on May’s cheeks but the room gets colder and colder. She can hear the chattering of her brothers’ teeth. 

May wants to freeze the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Comment/Kudos are very appreciated (and tend to make me write more lmao) so feel free to share your thoughts if you want!!


	9. breathing desperation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy!! Sorry about the super long chapter. The episode is chaotic.

With Allison bleeding on the floor, May is rapidly confronting her most basic fears. May cannot simply reach down and stitch her sister back up. She can’t control the way the blood coming out of her sister's neck is freezing faster than flowing. Ice climbs up the wall and May tries to leave the room but her feet are frozen to the blood coating the floor. 

May’s cheeks are burning with heat.

“She’s breathing!” Five shouts, pointing at the puffs of air coming from Allison’s lips. May only then notices it’s cold enough to see her breath.

She watches blankly as her brothers bring Allison to the car. 

Pattering feet and yelling fill her ears. She’s sitting. When did she start sitting? 

They’re in a car now. 

May considers opening the car door and stepping out. The heat of her cheeks is making her crazy. Klaus seems to hear her thoughts and grabs her hands. Waves of anxiety radiate off of him. May wants to comfort him but she doesn’t know how. 

Her throat is scratchy.

Chilled air is flowing through her hair. A breeze. A window is open in the car. The air hitting her face reminds her to breathe.

Breath enters her lungs in gasps. His body shivers with heat and quivers with shock. 

She needs a drink.

Klaus squeezes her hand tighter. “Bist du in Ordnung?”

Both Klaus and herself took German instead of Spanish as the other siblings. They often had private conversations in broken German as children. Now, though, it serves as a way to ensure the other’s mental state when they happen upon each other.

Usually, it was her asking the question, with Klaus high and groaning on the floor. Today, though, he’s asking her. It’s strange to be worried over.

For once, may cannot simply say _alles gut._

May isn’t sure how she feels. She’s not even sure if she’s feeling much of anything.

“Keine Ahnung.”

Her cheeks are hot. They aren’t hot enough to burn away the smell of blood in the car. 

There is an ache in her heart, but she ignores it. She can’t think about anything or she will break. 

She can’t control the room when the ice in her veins melts, so she won’t let it. She feels the ice choke her.

May startles when they get home. She ambles out of the car less than gracefully and slowly shadows her siblings. Mom has gloves on and there are surgical tools clattering. The smell of antiseptic almost covers the stench of blood.

“One of you need to give blood,” Mom says, pulling her gloves on tighter. The way she methodically prepares to fix the laceration rather than freaking out makes May bite the inside of her cheek. Times like this May is reminded her mother is a robot. 

Her siblings volunteer to give blood. Luther and Klaus are shot down. Diego volunteers again, but May’s arm is already in Mom’s hand, being wiped. 

She doesn’t remember walking across the room to give her arm. 

May is running on instinct and it’s dangerous. 

Klaus starts to sneak out of the room, but May stops him. 

“Keine Rauschgifte, Klaus. OK?”

She hardly notices the German falling through her lips.

He shakes his head before leaving. His steps are almost silent on the floor.

May almost feels her heart hurt.

“What does that mean?” Five asks, curiosity shining through even in times like this. He disappeared before they started language classes. 

“Does it matter?” May’s voice is hoarse. 

Her veins are pulsing. A twinge of sadness is leaking into her very being, making itself known. It’s sneaking out of wherever she hides her emotions and screaming into her ears. She lets it. 

Mom takes the needle out of her arm. 

When May was ten, she stopped talking for a whole year. She wanted to see if anyone would notice. They didn’t.

Then she was a shadow in her own home. Now, with her blood saving Allison she isn’t so sure. Luther is staring at her.

May grabs the sadness she let free and squishes it.

Frigid air begins to envelop her again. Her cheeks are cooling down. One by one she sorts through her emotions and squeezes them until they are so small others are convinced they do not exist.

She took control when she was ten by not speaking. Now though, with control out the window and the world ending, she doesn’t know what to do. 

May is twenty-nine now. Her voice is hoarse and there is a droplet of blood streaming down her wrist. Diego hands her a band-aid but the blood is frozen by the time he puts it on her arm.

She feels just as small as she did when she was Eight.

Maybe Father was right. She doesn’t deserve the name May when she still acts like Eight.

Only yesterday she was on the brink of death, and now the Reaper has moved on to Allison. 

She remembers the way she boiled when Klaus died. Why is she not doing that now? Why is she freezing? 

Maybe it’s better this way.

She doesn’t want to analyze the way she feels about this. Instead, her mind goes elsewhere. 

Someone is talking to her but she’s focused on Allison’s breaths and the way there is wind slamming against the windows. 

Diego sits next to her on the floor.

The world is muffled. It should be a relief, but it isn’t. 

She wants to freeze, but heat keeps creeping into her heart.

: The Umbrella Academy :

“The bastard that nearly killed our sister is still out there, with Vanya,” Diego stresses Vanya’s name in the sentence. “We need to go after her.”

May scoffs.

They never gave a shit about Vanya. Why worry now? 

It isn’t fair of them to suddenly start caring after she calls them out for never including her. May wonders why Diego even bothers.

“Vanya is not important.” Five is seething. Stress radiates off of him in waves. 

That phrase plays in her head like a broken record. How many times have those words left the mouths of her siblings? How many times has Vanya been cast aside?

May remembers the way Vanya would draw an umbrella on her wrist every day just to fit in. Suddenly, though, she stopped. May thought she finally realized it was a branding that made us out like animals. Maybe, though, she just gave up on thinking she was supposed to fit in.

On their tenth birthday, Luther uttered it under his breath. The last piece of cake was for Vanya but Luther already ate it by the time she came downstairs. May screeched at him, still an advocate for Vanya, and he said it like it justified everything.

When Father shouted at May after her asking for Vanya to come on a mission, he would slip in the phrase “Vanya is not important.”

Five and May fought over bringing Allison with them to the doughnut shop, and he always justified himself by saying “Vanya is not important.”

Diego muttered it after Grace forced them to go to one of her recitals.

Allison growled the phrase when Vanya got press coverage during the recitals. 

Klaus and Ben often had the phrase on their tongues but the white-hot pain of cold would creep up their backs if they dared to say it near May.

Too many times have they set Vanya aside. _Too many._

She proves them wrong every time. Whether it be with a violin, the way she crafts her words, or how she proves she can live without them, she always proves her family wrong. Without even knowing it, she is coming out on top. May thinks back to what she said to Vanya years ago. 

_You don’t know that you’re the best thing one can be in this world: ordinary._

But Vanya isn’t ordinary. The ashes of Vanya’s book sitting in May’s fireplace is proof.

She’s Extraordinary.

“It’s not true,” May calls out, voice cracking. “She’s more important than you will ever know.”

They don’t hear her. 

The familiar tendrils of disappointment and loneliness wrap around May.

She deserves it. Vanya had to sit with these tendrils choking her all throughout childhood. If Vanya can do it, so can May.

She begrudgingly trails after her brothers when they leave.

She can’t apologize to Vanya if the world ends, can she?

: The Umbrella Academy :

“Don’t get me wrong, I hate murder as much as the next guy, but this bastard deserved it,” May says, staring down at Harold’s dead body. 

Klaus leans over to get a better look. “It’s not exactly what I was expecting.” 

Five nods. “Understatement of the year.”

“Anyone else getting horror movie vibes?” May asks, poking the body with her foot. It freezes over where she touches. Whoops.

“Yep. Let’s go get the cops,” Diego turns on his heel.

“Just wait a minute,” Five reaches down and pulls the bandage off the guy's eye. Gross. He pushes it into his eye socket, protests from Diego filling the room. May retches a bit.

“The eye I’ve been carrying around for decades. It’s found its rightful home.”

“You’ve carried an eyeball with you for decades?” Disgust is evident in May’s voice.

Five just nods. He takes it back out. “It can’t be this easy. Here, look. This is the note I got from HQ, the one that says ‘Protect Harold Jenkins.” 

May glances at the note before nudging the body with her foot again. This time, the ice melts. 

She’s too busy thinking about Vanya to notice.

“But who killed him? Who did this?” 

“Honestly, I’d rather find Vanya and ask than act like Sherlock Holmes for the day, Five. Can we just get out of here?”

“Crazy idea, but I like it.” Klaus says, his usual sarcasm dripping off his lips.

Five pops away.

“If Vanya got away from this asshole she’s probably heading back to the Academy.” Diego turns to leave.

They let Harold Jenkins lay on the floor, rotting.

He deserves it.

: The Umbrella Academy :

She finds herself in her room, clutching a cup of coffee that has gone cold. It worries May the way it isn’t frozen over yet. What worries her more is how easily emotions are creeping out of her. They don’t belong in her head, sidestepping the walls she has so carefully built.

She tries to push down the emotions, squeezing them like before, but it doesn’t work. Too much is floating in her head. 

She finds out, then, that she is one extreme to the next. She is never in between. She is not the river the voice in her head insists she is. She is ice and steam. She is too many emotions or none. She wants to learn to be a river, but with unspoken emptiness of the house without Vanya breathing down her families necks, she can’t waste time. 

She is not happy with this new predicament. She was better off letting herself freeze to death. Emotions make her dangerous. 

She needs a drink to fight them off.

Downstairs, Five is making margaritas. 

He passes her one without comment.

It has a little umbrella with snowflakes on it. May smirks a bit at that.

Five disappears to answer the door. May stares awkwardly at Dolores. She almost asks the mannequin how it’s doing before remembering it can’t speak back, despite Five’s adamant protests.

Five returns with Hazel. He has a gun out. May glances at it before he puts it away.

“Sorry, old habits.”

May turns away and takes another sip of her drink. Her voice is level, but her hands are clenching the table. “You’re the one who kidnapped Klaus.”

“Sorry ‘bout that,” Hazel says. 

He’s nervous, then. 

“Not me you have to apologize to.” 

May eyes him before letting him off the hook. To Klaus, his kidnapping happened nearly a year ago. He has a more pressing matter to worry about than someone more nerves than man. 

“I’m not the only killer in this room.” 

May turns to Hazel and plays her deadliest smile for him. “Yeah, there’s two. Watch what you say before I make it three.”

He keeps a brave face on, but she can tell he’s on edge. He’s sweating, hands twitching. Five doesn’t seem to notice. 

Hazel begins to rant about something Five did in Calhoun, seemingly starstruck.

Five stops him in his tracks. “Hazel, why are you here?”

May takes another sip of her drink and glances at Hazel.

Diego is coming up behind him. May snickers a bit at the way Diego flips over Hazel, blatantly showing off training from years ago.

As entertaining as it is, though, May knows Hazel came here because he had something to say. He wouldn’t have bothered if it wasn’t important. 

She empties her cup and watches the fight, considering her options.

May freezes Diego's feet to the ground before he gets the chance to lunge for another punch. Five hits him over the head with a vase. 

“Make it quick, Hazel.”

Five nods at May in thanks before turning his attention to the agent.

“I left my partner, quit the Commission and came to volunteer.”

Well, that’s unexpected.

“For what?”

“To help stop the apocalypse.”

“I thought we already did that,” May says, looking at Five. “Harold Jenkins is dead.”

Five is chuckling into his drink. 

“How do you know that?” Hazel clenches his fists. 

“The mark is dead. Found him this morning.”

May tries to swipe the margarita from Dolores' hands, but Five slaps her hand away before continuing. “You were the last unknown left in the equation.”

May pours the rest of the blender into her cup.

Hazel chuckles, relief flooding in where nerves once were. “Really?”

May confirms it, humming around her straw. 

Hazel limps towards the bar and pours the small amount of margarita mix left into a cup for himself. May scoots as far away from him as possible. No matter what he does, May cannot trust someone that hurt her sibling. Even if they have a change in heart as Hazel has. 

She downs her drink quicker than the first, ignoring the nausea that follows. 

“So now what?”

“You leave us alone and make sure your partner does the same.” May’s words taste like poison when they leave her mouth.

She remembers when they always tasted like honey. A lot has changed in a week.

Hazel smiles to himself and nods. “Well, there’s something I guess.” 

Hesitantly, he stands to leave. Before walking out, he shares eye contact with Five. “Good luck.”

May doesn’t know what the luck is for, but she knows Five needs it. 

He drops two guns on his way out. 

She leaves Five alone with Diego. 

: The Umbrella Academy :

May sits in the front foyer, eyes locked to the door. She prays that Vanya will walk through the doors, but has no idea what she will do if she does. 

Will she hug Vanya? Apologize? Act as if everything is fine?

May doesn’t know. Each of those options seems artificial, like something she would never do under normal circumstances. 

But maybe that’s a good thing. 

When Vanya walks through the doors, May’s eyes lock onto hers. 

Vanya’s eyes show her anguish, and the way she holds herself now reminds May of the days when she was Seven.

It’s possible that’s all her family is. Names hiding behind the numbers that define their past. 

Other than anguish, a strange sense of satisfaction comes off Vanya in rolls. May shivers, thoughts of Jenkins running through her mind.

“Vanya? You alright?” 

May winces at the sound of her own voice. She’s slurring. 

“I-” Vanya is cut off when Luther calls to her from upstairs.

Seeing Vanya tremble at the sight of Luther makes May want to hug her. 

She doesn’t.  
May is dizzy, fighting off waves of feelings in favor of the cold. 

The margaritas sitting in her stomach seem to make the emotions worse. May files away this information for later.

“Is Allison-”

“She’s fine, Vanya. We were worried about you.” May says, beating Luther to whatever he was going to say. Fury hides in his posture. 

He shouldn’t be here right now. He’s already ruining the calmness of the room, and only one word has been uttered by him.

Years of tension are creeping out of corners, choking the three of them. 

May tries to break through the tension by asking Vanya where she’s been, but the words fall flat.

The words are empty and stale and they break against the echoes of Luther’s steps coming down the stairs. 

A chill climbs up May’s back, and this time it doesn’t come from inside of her. It’s fear. Luther’s expression is more animal than man, and it’s terrifying.

The panic sits in May’s gut like a parasite. 

It’s sickly familiar, the way Luther stares at Vanya like she is nothing. May forces herself to do what she would do as a child: stand up for her.

“What do you think you’re doing, big guy?”

“Out of the way, May.”

“Not happening. I’m the leader of the Vanya Hargreeves Protection Club. Now if you don't mind, back off.” Her breath is freezing the air in front of her. She’s pushing down years of anger, and Luther doesn’t seem to understand how dangerous she is in that moment. He wraps his hand around May’s wrist, squeezing tightly. 

“I want to know what happened, Vanya.”

Luther’s hand starts to freeze over. He pulls away. He’s bleeding. The ice has buried itself in the crevices of his skin.

 _Finally someone else knows how that feels,_ May thinks offhandedly.

“We got in an argument.” Vanya’s voice is hardly a whisper. “And things got out of control. I didn’t mean to hurt her. Please, you have to believe me.”

May inches closer to Vanya, a protective stance taking over. 

Luther is tense. “I do.”

May gently grabs Vanya’s hand, memories of bloody lips and black eyes Luther had caused during childhood invading May’s mind.

“It was an accident. And I was angry and… it, uh, it just happened. Could I see her?” 

Vanya sounds like she’s about to be thrown on death row. According to the way Luther looms over them, she just might.

“She’s resting now. Maybe later.”

Vanya nods and clears her throat. Her voice is delicate. “Is it okay if I wait here for a bit?”

May glares at Luther until he says yes.

He unexpectedly lifts his arms for a hug, and Vanya pulls away from May too quickly for her to stop it.

May hears the way Vanya’s bones creak under the pressure of Luther holding on too tight. 

Vanya is begging for it to stop. 

May yells at Luther, ignoring the way the walls shake and the bricks come loose. She makes an attempt to grab at her, pull her away from Luther, but he throws her against the wall. 

It takes a moment to register the stones she hears cracking are caused by the force in which Luther threw her against the wall. 

May groans, trying to push herself up, but it doesn’t work. 

Her ears are ringing. It’s like church bells playing just for her. 

There’s blood on the floor around her. She touches the back of her head and warm liquid leaks onto them. It’s her blood, then.

May looks to Vanya and is reminded of her book. The world shakes.  
_May was cold in more ways than one. She was always distant and quiet, never speaking to the others. She iced over the world and never pulled herself out of her head. She drowned whatever was going on in her mind with lovers who warmed her bed._ The passage repeats in May’s head like a broken record.

How many times has she been told this? How many times has May been told she is cold? Told she lacks empathy?

May remembers the way she and Vanya would draw together, grins on their faces. But then the ice crept in and Vanya acted as if May was the Arctic, cold and distant.

On every birthday, Luther would pull away from May, whining that she was colder than their robot mother. 

When Father shouted at May for only freezing, she would freeze more. 

Diego muttered one day that Grace had more emotion than May did.

Allison growled the same thing when May ignored her when Allison bragged about her latest magazine. 

Klaus and Ben often joked about it, but a semblance of truth would sneak itself into the humor.

Always, she was emotionless.

Too many times has she believed them. Too many times has she frozen her emotions to play the role her siblings have given her. _Too many._

Little do they know, she holds great amounts of empathy. It’s just been hidden behind a dam, waiting to flood out. With the week’s stresses weighing down on her, and the sounds of Vanya’s struggles filling her ears, she does what the voice in her head says.

She becomes a river.

She’s too late. When the water comes flooding out from inside her, the shaking stops. Vanya is limp in Luther’s arms. 

May screams.

Water floods towards Luther, not dissimilar to a tsunami. 

Her head is pounding and blood travels down the nape of her neck.

She can’t hold the water for long, and Luther just stares at her, disbelief in his eyes. 

May might be strong, but Luther’s anger is stronger. He stomps away, boots swishing through the water. 

She doesn’t remember falling to the ground, but the wetness on her face tells her that’s where she is. 

She was too late.

The water is steam.

: The Umbrella Academy :

May is weak, tears in her eyes. Vanya is inside of a room hidden away in the basement, dripping wet. Diego holds May up.

She’s shaking. She doesn’t care enough to try to fix it. 

She wants Vanya out of there.

Her brothers are arguing but May is too busy staring at Vanya. Her eyes are pleading.

Allison is here. May watches her try to push around Luther, tears in her eyes. She’s gasping. 

Luther pushes her away and urges the group out of the basement.

May doesn’t want to let Vanya down again. Not after all those times. Not after everything they've been through. 

She thinks the world is shaking, but it’s actually just the way she’s trembling.

She looks at Vanya, an apology on her lips. Luther keeps telling them it’s time to go.

Before she can say she’s sorry, Diego is dragging her away. 

Her throat is dry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a feeling people are losing interest in this fic. lol
> 
> Comment/Kudos pls if you liked
> 
> Hope y'all enjoyed

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it. Sorry about the characterizations. I still don't seem to have a grasp on the characters as well as I want to. Leave a comment/kudos to show support. Thanks!


End file.
